Lord Turner’s recent report says the banking crisis was caused by banks abandoning proven, prudent banking principles. Their attitude seems to have been ‘everyone in the market is doing it, so it must be all right. We have to copy them or go out of business’.

Will it be seen with hindsight that the solicitors’ profession has been doing something similar? It started with ‘we must advertise because our competitors can’. Then it was, ‘we must allow referral fees because our competitors do’. Then it was ‘we must embrace the concept that we are a business and indulge in cross-selling to survive’. Now it’s ‘we must go along with the potential conflict of interest involved in multi-disciplinary practices – the market demands it’.

Isn’t there an argument for sticking to our principles and protecting the public and the solicitors’ brand by a much stronger resistance to market pressures, refusing to follow the herd of lemming competitors? Just because something is the latest fashion does not mean that it is better, or that it will survive the test of time.

Peter Browne, Solicitor, Bristol