The legal market is in danger of being consumed by the same doom and gloom that taunts the UK economy. For years the media have filled our TVs and newspapers with stories of fear, uncertainty and doubt. While some of the stories may be true, many are fiction. There is a real danger we are consumed by the fiction and allow negative predictions to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, where banks stop lending and consumers stop spending. A familiar story? We end up acting out the very scenario we want to avoid. I see the same pattern emerging in the legal world.

It has been gratifying that both the national and legal media have at last caught up with the series of revelations that Legal Futures has been reporting on since March over problems with the Bar’s disciplinary regime. Last week, suddenly, it featured on the Today programme, as well as in The Times, which in turn woke up some legal rags to what has been happening.

I don’t know how many law firms chart the ‘journey’ that leads clients to seeking their advice, but I would guess that it is very, very few. Magically, or perhaps because of an advert in the Yellow Pages, or maybe the recommendation of a one-time client, clients turn up on the doorstep wanting help. What more do you need to know? In any case, it is probably because of your brilliant local reputation.

The recent debate on the Bar Standards Board’s (BSB) plans to regulate advocacy-focused business structures – entities – pitted Bar Council old-timers against BSB modernists, and it was the latter who came out on top. The motion was bland enough but it soon became clear that what its proposers actually meant by this was “entities will open the door to solicitors flooding (and eventually taking over) the Bar’s institutions and that by inviting solicitor-advocates into its regulatory ‘tent’, the BSB will weaken the distinctiveness of the barristers’ offering”.

I’m feeling a rant coming on, so bear with me. In the two-plus years of this website, I have had cause to complain about the lack of transparency of many of the bodies involved in the regulation of the legal profession. I have ample cause to do so again, unfortunately. First up is the Legal Services Board, whose approach to the publication of papers and to holding open board meetings is frustrating to say the least. Well, yesterday I got the limited satisfaction of knowing that it’s not just me.