During my 12 years working on the Law Society Gazette, one got used to certain clichés. The plastic wrapper would come up a lot, but more than anything people would say how their favourite section was the one detailing solicitors being struck off – it was the same for me as a reader while a trainee solicitor. I felt strangely proud a few months back after recognising three people in one edition of the Gazette’s Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal reports.

The appointment of Nick Eastwell as the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s (SRA) first City law firm adviser is “the missing link” in its approach to the City, according to SRA board chairman Charles Plant (see story) – part of the SRA’s story of evolution, I guess. This is all well and good, I suppose, but is the SRA suffering from a huge shortage of advice on how to negotiate the issues around the City? Just look at how many City solicitors are on its board.

Why is it that solicitors have to jump through so many regulatory hoops when taking on a client, as compared to other professionals and especially unregulated legal providers. Should the “act” not override the “actor”? It may all be unfair on solicitors, reckons Martin Gregory of Legal Futures Associate Lateral Law.

Who would be a claimant personal injury lawyer right now? First the Jackson report, now the Young review, soon (if you also do a bit of clinical negligence) legal aid cuts and in less than a year alternative business structures, many of which will be targeting what is seen as one of the most easily commoditisable areas of practice.

Innovation has been on my mind of late. From the probate business I met last week that outsources legal work to an English solicitor working at an Australian law firm so that it gets done overnight, to Birmingham firm Blakemores and its stands in shopping centres, to the QualitySolicitors firm with branded and non-branded offices on opposite sides of the street.