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Yes, my first reaction was the same as David Crawford's.

However, on reflection it is entirely wrong. Our rulers wanted law to be "commercial", and now it is. This type of situation is the inevitable corrollary to such commercialism.

The mistake the profession made was in going along with commerciality without divesting ourselves of the professional obligations, as banks did.

We should have dumped compulsory PII, the Compensation Fund, "officers of the court" (the courts certainly never give solicitors respect for that, just the responsibility...), and all the other stuff.

Getting rid of the non representative Law Society and replacing it with a body like the BBA, which fiercely defends the banks, would also have been sensible.

So, yes, a professional "disgrace" as some would have it, but the natural result of business, which is certainly not a disgrace at all, simply what happens in business, as Tesco, M and S, and others know.....