Your recent article 'Lack of ethics training for young solicitors may undermine legal values' (see [2003] Gazette, 25 September, 6) makes a good point that there is probably inadequate training of ethical rules for young lawyers.

Ethics are much more complicated than they were in the period when client confidentiality was almost sacrosanct.

However, I disagree with the quote from John Clitheroe that there may be a link between deteriorating standards of dress in the profession and deteriorating ethical standards.

While he goes on to say that in the 1950s more formal standards of dress denoted a certain level of professionalism, my own experience in the 1970s outside the firm where I then practised was that, to some, a certain standard of dress and ethics was actually the standards expected at the club, the golf club, Rotary, Round Table or the Masonic.

It was undoubtedly not always in the client's best interest either.

It was put to me by one old buffer when I explained that a solicitor colleague of his had made a serious mistake and that my client was entitled to take full financial advantage of that, 'we just do not do that sort of thing old boy, we stick together as a profession and look after each others' backs, not drop each other in it'.

I do not think that many in the profession now, and none outside it, would welcome a return of what was often a male and club-dominated world.

Nigel Anderson, Anderson Partnership, Chesterfield