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Thank you, John N for your reasoned response to my comments which I do follow and I appreciate your taking the trouble to set them out. I would reply as follows:

(i) Surely the solicitor convicted of fraud in a criminal court has had his due process? How many additional processes should he be entitled to? Is there scope here for a rule whereby upon conviction before a criminal court of an offence involving dishonesty the convict shall, if an admitted solicitor or barrister, be automatically removed from the Roll or disbarred. By all means add the right to apply to be restored to the Roll if you think that appropriate and he can have his hearing before SDT? Then everyone knows where he stands. We can't have convicts of fraud running around in this profession, surely? What about the safety of clients' money? I can recall the day when anyone found to have advertised was automatically struck off. How soft a touch are we in the process of becoming?

(ii) If my suggestion in (i) above is unacceptable, I agree to your proposal, well the first half, whereby the trial judge should have the power of strike off. The public must think we are going soft on our own fellow practitioners. Don't forget that in bending over backwards for one black sheep, the other 99.99% of the profession can and does suffer reputational damage.

(iii) I do appreciate it is hard to detect a wrongdoer when he enters the profession. He does not announce himself as such. Is a CRO check made? Are references taken up? I also think that it is too easy for foreign lawyers to be re-admitted in England and Wales. A small test plus 6 months 'training' in a lawyer's office cannot be enough. I enquired about retraining in France and was told that that would be absolutely fine, but I would have to do the full 7 years' training! A lot of the names of those who are disciplined are obviously from 'beyond the seas';

(iv) Agreed, but are we letting too many into the profession? In 1973 there were 20,000 solicitors and 2,000 barristers. Now there are 130,000 and 10,000 respectively. That must be much more difficult to police and do we really need so many?

(v) I agree. The pressures of professional life are far greater than ever they were when I began in 1973. In fact the pressures of life in general are in accountancy, medicine, dentistry, being a landlord, an employer, everything. Regulatory pressure features a lot in my friends complaints and especially compulsory PII cover and the cost of it including run-off. Everything which eats away at profitability must be an extra straw which breaks the camel's back on the road to dishonesty. Added to that is the opportunity when large sums of clients' monies are available. This seems to be particularly prevalent in probate work. Is there scope for having an escrow account for such matters, or for making the solicitor open a designated and separate account where someone else has to sign cheques? The cases proceed so slowly that having to track down an outside signatory cannot be too difficult or cause delay.

I can certainly agree with your final paragraph. I ran my own practice for 10 years and spent half my time running the business and complying with professional requirements, and quite a lot of money on PII cover plus I insured my excess with SIF so as not to have someone else spending the first £3,000 of my money. Also I did not employ a book keeper, instead I paid my accountant to send a lady, Mrs Hughes, to to a trial balance and a bank reconciliation statement each month. She also did my VAT returns. I knew that way, first, I did not have the complications of the employer/employee relationship, second, I had someone to sue if anything did go wrong, third, I was not employing someone full-time to do a part time job and, last but not least, nothing, nothing, got past Mrs Hughes. I would recommend that arrangement to everyone.

Thank you for opening up a debate which I think is long overdue. If these issues continue to be 'swept under the carpet' they will just get worse. I hope you find some of my comments constructive.