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I am a solicitor practising in commercial law. I recently went through a divorce which, fortunately for me, did not end up in a court hearing.

My legal costs were out of all proportion to the value I got. Frankly I was amazed at how supine my lawyers were. I expected them to help advise me on how to settle (everyone agreed at the outset that that was what we were trying to do).

I got so frustrated at their failure to come up with something - anything at all - that in the end I put forward my own proposal. My lawyers told me it was a good basis for settlement.

As the months dragged by and the costs mounted it became increasingly clear that I had been far too generous in the offer I had made. In the end I was helped by my family (not my lawyers) to reach a settlement.

All in all I could have spent half of what I did and reached the same conclusion in under half the time if I had known at the outset what I know now.

In summary, I have zero sympathy with my brethren who go to court and think they are giving a good service in the way this poor judge had to put up with.

I seem to remember that in the 19th century the profession used to charge conveyancing fees based on the volume of twaddle they wrote.

It is high time more people actually bothered to read what the Solicitors Remuneration Order says, and has said for decades: fees should be value based, with the time spent being only one element. Record time and use it sensibly as a management tool (it never happens in my experience). After all, the incompetent lawyer who takes twice as long to do a piece of work as her genius colleague (whose talent is not recognised in higher hourly rates) ends up billing more under the current ludicrous approach. Time to get real I think.