Toilet humour is not usually welcome at any time but it got a laugh on this occasion.

As the men queued during a break in Wednesday’s Claims Management Conference in Manchester, one moaned about the length of the line. ‘Give it a year and there’ll be no one here to wait behind,’ was one wag’s response.

The laughs were bittersweet, for this is a period of great uncertainty in this sector of the profession. The stark reality, voiced many times during this conference, is that hundreds of firms face extinction within the next five years. And if the firms are in jeopardy, the prospects aren’t much better for their solicitors. RBS this week predicted that 5% of fee-earners may have to be culled if firms want to boost profits (though surely fee-earners are the profit-makers? Economics never was my strong point).

Of course, it’s a bit rich for RBS to lecture anyone on how to run a business, but many law firms will be customers and the bank will know full well how precarious their balance sheets are. Most analysts speculate between a quarter and a third of personal injury firms will cease to be by the end of the decade.

Some will be trampled on by big new entrants coming to a high street near you, casualties of a stampede, devoured like lame wildebeest labouring at the back of the herd. Others will succumb to the lure of whatever text-speaking franchise happens 2b de rigueur.

The only question is pinpointing which firms will fail. We know why they will fail: ignoring phone calls, clocking off at lunchtime on Fridays and playing Chris de Burgh for their hold music (you know who you are). In other words, treating customers as an afterthought.

Ray Gordon, founder of one franchise, the spellcheck-bothering face2face solicitors, told the conference that client service among firms with up to five partners is ‘appalling’ (though we mark his words with a ‘he would say that wouldn’t he’ disclaimer).

Are solicitors really that bad? Are there really firms out there that treat customers so badly? I’ve yet to find one, yet constantly we’re told by various sources that they exist. (Perhaps it’s like the Jimmy Carr joke about there also being one idiot in any group of friends. If you can’t think of someone, it’s you.) Law firm owner and conference chairman Kerry Underwood was adamant that levels of service are ‘vastly better’ than 30 years ago. Many others spoke up to support him.

These may be precarious times, but I don’t sense law firms are ignoring that pressure and not preparing for the future. Of course, any head-in-the-sanders out there are surely only kidding themselves. The sands of time are ebbing away, with the Legal Services Act giving their hourglass a hefty shake.

But if firms genuinely are getting the basics right, then they can swim clear of the vast fishing net threatening to swoop on so many minnows. There is still hope - this is not a doomed profession, it just might look very different in 2013.

And on the plus side, at least the queue for the toilets might be shorter next year.

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