You remember that arcade game where you whacked crocodiles with a mallet? No matter what you did another would pop up - it was as frustrating as it was futile.

I imagine running a small law firm must be similarly exasperating right now. The likes of QualitySolicitors lurk round every corner, ready to envelop firms with their garish branding. Supermarket giants, breakdown cover firms and old people’s holiday fixers wait in the wings, poised for the ABS starting gun to fire them into a sprint for a good spot to pitch their tent in the legal market.

Estate agents, claims managers, financial advisers - they’ll all want a piece of the action, and fending them off will take much more than a rubber mallet. But are we ignoring the biggest threat of all: clients/consumers?

The cash-strapped, time-poor client, with a greater awareness than ever of their rights and with less loyalty to local providers than Carlos Tevez to his paymaster. The general public talks disingenuously today about the loss of a favourite record store or greengrocer without the slightest acknowledgement that they caused them to disappear.

As Professor Stephen Mayson, director of the Legal Services Institute, told a conference this week: ‘When you do market research consumers say they like their corner shop and their post office.

‘They’ll say all these things to researchers and then shop in Tesco. I hear from many solicitors saying "we’ve heard this before", but look around, smell the coffee - to believe it won’t change radically is ridiculous.’

And so enters the fixed-fee service. These are companies offering basic legal advice and guidance, typically for less than £100, marketing themselves as cut-price and easy alternatives to trekking into town to sit in a solicitor’s practice. James Mather, himself a solicitor and director of Expert Answers, believes thousands of people who need basic advice are being ‘failed’ by the current legal system.

‘These people can’t get advice from solicitors because they don’t see it as worth their time to help them.

‘I’m talking about people who have purchased a mobile phone that develops a fault within a week and now can’t get their money back from the provider or have a dispute with a landlord or estate agent about a deposit.

‘People with a £100 problem don’t want an answer that costs £200.’

Tim Briggs, whose Legal Mentor firm recently advised its 100th customer since being launched earlier this year, is adamant he is not trying to compete with law firms. ‘There will be some people who have gone to a solicitor for something small and would have been disappointed at paying £500.

‘People like to know they are only going to pay a fixed amount and they will be in a better position to deal with their problem. We don’t slag off solicitors - we’re positive about them. We’re realistic about our boundaries and we’re doing the best for the client.’

There is, of course, a limit on the scope of services these fixed-fee companies can offer. They can never advise in any detail, or prepare cases for clients. We’re not talking about commercial clients suddenly loosening the shackles and going it alone.

But their existence points to a market out there for convenient, often remote, advice - with costs outlined in advance. Many in the legal profession will claim they hold the same status as doctors in that consumers want the best treatment and are willing to pay for it. That may be so, but I know of plenty of people who prefer NHS Direct to the doctor’s surgery.

The client is more savvy than ever and can be basically legally informed for about the cost of a decent meal out. Will they decide in the future they don’t need a solicitor at all? That an inferior product or service is still ‘good enough’?