Martin Gregory of Legal Futures Associate Lateral Law argues that one response to commoditisation is for solicitors to offer different clients different levels of service at different prices.

When then shadow justice minister Henry Bellingham last year floated the idea that some client account interest ­should be applied to the legal aid fund rather than solicitors’ pockets, some thought it one of the barmier suggestions of ways to supplement public funding. But even though Mr Bellingham has moved on, the idea has not, as proved by this week’s legal aid green paper.

An intervention into a solicitors’ practice is a drastic step and one which invariably results in the closure of the practice and often in the bankruptcy of the solicitor who is intervened in. It is because of this that pressure from the Law Society and others has been placed on the SRA and it now appears to have started considering alternatives to intervention wherever possible.

This is a blog I didn’t expect to write. We all know the independence of the legal profession from government is robust, right? In the summer I was speaking to Carolyn Lamm, the then president of the American Bar Association, about alternative business structures. When I asked if we had covered all of her concerns, she surprised me by raising the independence issue.

A Gazette article caught my eye today, entitled “Solicitors believe ABSs will create ‘more opportunity’”, writes Duncan Finlyson. It is the latest bizarre and illogical instalment in the plan to delude everyone into believing that alternative business structures are not a threat but an opportunity.