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I voted in favour of keeping the Solicitors Indemnity Fund. I understood that under the SIF some firms were paying over the odds for their professional indemnity insurance, (mainly the large City firms, from what I gather, and some doing a lot of low risk work like crime), but on the whole I couldn't see there being anything better.

I think that we need to go back to either: (i) a master policy covering us all, or (ii) a mutual fund.

At present, I consider my [English] professional indemnity insurance to be a liability, an overhead I would be better off not having to pay for. All it does is mean that I am worth suing. It protects me from nothing.

I have got €300,000.00 of cover under a master policy taken out by the Madrid College of Lawyers. I pay €100 per quarter for my practising certificate as a Spanish lawyer and for that I get €300,000.00 worth of professional indemnity insurance thrown in. Wow! Now that is what I think a professional body is really for! Protecting its members! Making sure we're all right!

It gets better, because I pay into a Spanish lawyers' mutual fund, (that used to be obligatory for all registered lawyers, and, to some extent still is), that means that if I am unable to work due to serious illness / disability I'll be paid a meaningful pension for life, and when / if I reach 67 I'll be entitled to a meaningful retirement pension.

A client of mine on a Spanish criminal matter complained about me to the Madrid College of Lawyers. I was not charged a bean by my professional body, and, after listening to the client's woes, dismissed his complaint. They didn't even trouble me for my views on my client's complaint. It was always open to him to take me to court! They weren't there for things like that.

The Law Society in London had a pension fund, but that was closed to new contributors years ago.

So, the Law Society in London no longer has a pension fund, and it no longer takes out a master policy covering all solicitors against professional negligence claims, and it no longer has a mutual fund for professional negligence claims against solicitors. In its day it set up a parallel court that has now become the Legal Services Ombudsman which charges £400.00 to investigate you. The costs of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal can be astronomical and the Law Society does not provide any solicitor with any support when facing disciplinary proceedings, or, if it does, I'm not aware of it. Who knows! Maybe the Law Society is doing sterling work lobbying government, the Lord Chancellor, et al, on our behalf, but just right now I'm just not seeing it. What are those imposing buildings in Chancery Lane for? What are its denizens doing for us?