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Ed Austin, you are entirely right in that it might give some a significant competitive advantage. I publish some of my prices on my website precisely because compared to my main competitors in London and Manchester I am competitively priced.

At the same time that is precisely the problem. Many members of the public shop around looking for the cheapest quote for doing a residential conveyance and they do assume that everything else, ie quality and what services / searches precisely are covered by the term "conveyance", will be the same everywhere.

I very rarely now do residential conveyancing, (because I can't make it pay), but sometimes I've no choice for all sorts of reasons, and I can't remember the last time I actually came across a solicitor on the other side.

Some time ago I went to a seminar given by a nearby Land Registry. The room was full, but I distinctly got the impression that I was the only solicitor present in the audience.

If you really push it, in the end the only firms with financial strength will be the ones doing work for other financially strong businesses.

What has happened to Pannone's in Manchester is instructive. Pannone used to be the premier legal firm in Manchester doing a wide range of legal work for everybody. Recently it hived off the High Street work and gave / sold it to Slater & Gordon, and kept the corporate work.

I have got a client in the Manchester area who I am trying to find a firm able and willing to take his case on. I haven't managed it. The case requires a lot of technical expertise that firms either simply haven't got, or they can't afford to get involved with this case because they haven't the financial resources.

The financially strong firms doing company - commercial work don't want Mr & Mrs Average with their arguments over inheritances, but Mr & Mrs Average do get involved in boundary disputes, accidents, unfair dismissals, brushes with the criminal justice system ... and as a sole practitioner happy to refer people to others I am finding it increasingly difficult to find firms able and willing to taken them on essentially because firms can only afford to take on the quick, easy, profitable work.

Keep the really profitable work and sell off the High Street work, as Pannones did in Manchester, or simply stop doing High Street legal work as the City firms have done in London, the possibility of taking on long running, financially risky cases, by the remaining firms becomes increasingly difficult. The remaining firms are the ones doing High Street work for Mr & Mrs Average, and nobody has got the money to fund anything.

The question is how to get some strength back into firms you yourself might need one day because the police have arrested you, your house is the subject of a fraudulent transfer, the neighbour has put up a fence six inches onto your land, you've lost your job, your marriage has broken down, your ex has taken the kids abroad ... and you can forget about Nabarro, Pannone, Clifford Chance, Bruckhaus ... it's Smith & Co, the one that did the conveyancing so cheaply though actually not necessarily all that well when it came down to it.