Young blood required

I should like to endorse wholeheartedly the comments made by Carolyn Kirby, in her final column as president, about the need for involvement of younger solicitors in the Law Society's activities (see [2003] Gazette, 17 July, 18).

The Young Solicitors Group (YSG) was conceived by the Law Society in 1958 as the Young Members Committee with the express aim of increasing the numbers of young people involved at all levels of the profession's management.

Forty-five years later, we still face the situation that only 3% of the Society's governing council are younger than 35.

Contrary to the statistic quoted by Ms Kirby, our membership database shows that more than 50,000 members of the solicitors' profession as a whole are younger than 35 - approximately 47% of the 109,000 on the Roll.

Without these individuals getting involved at a local level with their YSG local group and local law society, and playing a part in the Society's activities, there will continue to be a lack of representation in the national Law Society.

Adrian Barham, chairman, Young Solicitors Group