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It always surprises me, when discussing QS, that people seem unable to appreciate the point of QS, the company.

People talk of marketing, branding, and so on, as if QS is a group of solicitors firms who have come together with an idea to pool marketing expertise to increase the number of clients who walk through the door.

QS is just a glorified CMC. Its target market is not consumers, people who need wills, or accident victims in W H Smiths. Its target market is solicitors firms.

Their business model is to persuade solicitors that they are incapable of marketing themselves, and present themselves as the solution to this problem, in return for a one-off payment of £20,000 plus whatever per month.

With quite some publicity from this very magazine itself, The Law Gazette, they managed to succeed in the early days, and sign up lots of new firms.

Then - sensibly - job done, the owners sold out, cashed in, and moved on.

From year one onwards, it was only ever going to be downhill unless they could continue to sign up new law firms, which by definition was unlikely.