The Gazette’s opinion of 5 August is headed Big bang theory. There is already a ‘big bang’ going on in the profession with regard to access to justice for clients. First, the client’s entitlement to have a solicitor of their choice in legal aid work is going to be restricted (along with the livelihoods of many of the most caring members of our profession); second, the client’s entitlement to have a solicitor of their choice in mortgage work is being restricted by the limitations placed by lenders; and third, a swathe of the profession will be lost this year, due to higher insurance premiums again reducing the choice of solicitors.

Into this the government is intent on unleashing the dogs of war – commercial war, that is – with an apparently inevitable advance toward ‘commercial’ ownership of the legal profession through alternative business structures.

One theory, as Jon Moulton says, is that this could be ‘a big whimper’. However, look at the example of estate agents in the 1980s. One or two commercial organisations saw the purchase of estate agents as a way of improving market share. Very soon, everyone had to own a chain of estate agents in order not to be left behind. Then everyone realised that estate agents made the best estate agents and these businesses were sold – often back to their original owners – having run up heavy losses. Obviously the consumer ultimately picked up the bill.

In-fighting precipitated by part 5 of the Legal Services Act will yield conflicts of interest and abandoned clients, and see the commercial ethos brought into the legal advice and representation of clients. Solicitors’ reputations are likely to diminish in consequence.

Solicitors are the gatekeepers of one of the components of our constitution and this diminished reputation will have serious consequences for law and justice. Government will regret not having given this greater thought. There is no clear demand for commercial investment among big city firms. It will have no effect on ordinary clients, but merely constitute another layer of profit, resulting in extra costs to be covered by client fees.

It is disappointing that the Gazette is talking up a ‘big bang’, when what should in fact be the result of ABSs, if they are introduced, is a ‘big whimper’. Like the Law Society, the Gazette should be leading opinion from the front on the basis of ethics, not pragmatism.

In an email canvass of the views of sole practitioners, 95% of those responding were against full ABSs. Sole practitioners will continue to lobby against this.

Clive Sutton , honorary secretary, Sole Practitioners Group