I read the article by Charles Plant with a sinking heart as I found the repeated reference to ‘consumers’ depressing.

I was brought up to believe that solicitors belonged to a profession that provided a service. I try to provide such a service, from which I expect appropriate remuneration, rather than to sell a commodity all too frequently based on Jack Cohen’s dictum of ‘pile ‘em high and sell ‘em cheap’.

Of course solicitors, like everyone else, must adopt a commercial and market-oriented approach in order to survive, but I wonder whether, rather than referring to ‘my clients’, I shall soon have to refer to ‘my consumers’?

WJB Meakin, Gravesend