Unleashed | Promoting the solicitor brand

Watching a martial eagle swoop down at 80 miles per hour to catch an unfortunate guinea fowl is a sight that you can only wonder at. The martial eagle is Africa's biggest eagle and normally it is seen in a tree or perhaps riding a thermal. Seeing it make its deadly strike was one of the reasons I had travelled to Zambia on a wildlife holiday. In a sense the martial eagle strike was a story without a beginning and a story without and end: I never saw the beginning of its descent and the end was something that I was spared as it happened behind some bushes. What was left was the glorious middle with the eagle in full flight swooping downwards at speed, wings drawn back, eyes and beak thrust forward.

Legal aid safari

Now if any of you are thinking that ?a wildlife holiday is some form of expensive safari you would be wrong. I was camping. Putting my own tent up, taking it down and eating rudimentary food in the bush. This was what you might call a legal aid safari rather than a top end chalet safari for our friends in the West End and the City.

I was with a group of five others whom I had never met before and the first few days I was in that blissful situation when nobody knew I was a lawyer. Curiously after three days one of my number suggested that I might be an undertaker as I knew something about wills, funerals and the scattering of ashes.

When the group did find out that I was a lawyer it was surprising how those outside the legal profession showed a genuine lack of understanding of the difference between a legal aid lawyer and commercial solicitor.

For instance The general consensus was that all lawyers shopped in Waitrose and that I probably drove a fast car

What the group did understand was that lawyers charged lots of money doing what they thought was very little work. The looks of horror on those within the group when I disclosed that I charge £350 per hour for private client work showed the group's distaste for the legal profession.

Catching up with Jo Public

Unfortunately the legal profession ?still has some catching up to do when ?it comes to massaging its reputation ?with the general public. I was dealing with a disproportionate and small cross section of society but there can be little doubt that the views expressed were probably completely representative ?of how Joe Public approaches the ?legal profession.

Certainly there must come a time when the Law Society reaches deeply into its pockets to embark on a campaign which will make the public realise exactly how important lawyers are and the problems that will beset society when the impecunious public cannot find a legal aid lawyer or indeed find any form of solicitor if they are of modest means.

The legal profession does not really have a brand at present. We need to make the public aware of our brand and make them begin to love us rather than continue with the fat cat analogy.

It was a good holiday. As those of you who read this column regularly will know it is generally only wildlife that gets me out of the office and Cosmo the office dog is one of the joys of attending the office. But to go back to our friend the martial eagle I am reminded of the fact that legal aid is also a story where the beginning was a long time ago and we are currently in the middle of the story.

Sadly I foresee that the end may be in sight. I just hope that I am not part of it.

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