Both reforms respond to real and well-evidenced gaps in the current framework. The SRA’s changes after consultation feedback shows it’s listening. But structural change on paper is only half the job.

While technology has made much of the conveyancing process faster, there remains a practical limit to how many matters anyone can manage while still keeping standards intact.

Consolidation and the boutique boom are not contradictory. They are the same market stretching apart at both ends – and it changes what your firm is worth, and to whom.

When I qualified, a conveyancer had perhaps 10 or 12 plates to keep spinning. Today’s conveyancers have 20 or 30, and almost none of the room for error I had starting out.

Most of the partners I talk to describe the same tension. They want the firm to run efficiently and hit its numbers, but they also want their people to feel supported, developed and fairly treated.