British solicitors under threat
We have to admit a personal interest here. We hate solicitors. Not individually perhaps, but as a breed. As an industry. Most are lazy. Many are incompetent. And some are out-and-out crooks.
So okay, a few do a decent enough job. And the odd one or two are even wonderful. But good or bad, it looks as if their days are numbered, at least as far as sole practitioners or traditional partnerships are concerned.
Why? Professional Indemnity Insurance, or PII. That's what.
In simple terms, to operate as a solicitor in the UK (and presumably a lot of other places), you need insurance cover to underwrite your various screw-ups, etc. But in the current convulsive compensation culture of the UK, as claims mount against the profession, so the insurers are getting twitchy and demanding ever larger premiums (sound like a familiar story?).
The upshot is that sole practitioners and trad partners are now running for cover either under the shelter of Limited Liability Partnerships, or (more likely) headed for the larger and more corporate law firms where economies of scale, stronger financial underpinnings, shrewder business minds and sheer weight of numbers give them a better chance of practising their dubious skills whilst armed with the requisite insurance indemnity documentation.
In August 2012 there were 4,215 sole practitioners in the UK. One year on, that number has fallen to 3,198. It's not the beginning of the slide, and it's not the end of it. Many pundits are predicting the ultimate demise of the sole practitioner and even the family firm, which will be a shame because that's probably where you're more likely to find a half decent mouthpiece the next time you find yourself in serious trouble with the rozzers, your wife, husband, anyone else looking for a pound (or more) of your flesh, or when someone has knocked you off your classic bike and left you substantially out of pocket, or worse.
The big firms, most people would agree, tend to have fewer (or at least less obvious) scruples. They more heavily bias their practices in favour of commercial expediency rather than focus on the more mundane requirement of ensuring that their clients get a fair deal under the law.
Or are we simply too jaded by negative personal experience to hold a more balanced picture of the barely-fit-for-purpose British legal profession?
Either way, as the insurance industry bites down, the days of Ripoff & Cashit, or Cheetem & Soomy could be numbered—and there's a certain satisfying justice in the notion that one bunch of vultures is now preying on another.
What goes around, comes around, huh?
— The Third Man
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