Legal standards

Unsurprisingly, yet another attempt has been made to persuade the laity that Scotland’s legal system and lawyers are up there with the best the world can offer. Mr Kirk Murdoch, chairman, Pinsent Masons, opined: “Time and again, we find the reputation of Scottish legal training is world-renowned and the quality of lawyering much admired.

“Our reputation is a strength which we need to capitalise on.” (your report, 19 August)

Many clients do not share that perception of our legal system.

For them, the “quality of lawyering” they expensively experienced in their dealings with solicitors, advocates and QCs was not quite good enough to be classified as woeful – a perception that was supported when they witnessed, in court, swashbuckling flourishes of “lawyering” reflecting impotent rhetoric.

Mr Murdoch enthusiastically informed us that “there are huge opportunities for inward investment as a result of the reputation of Scottish lawyers”.

Given that the motivation for “inward investment’” anywhere is the slavish pursuit of profit, it is unlikely that the “reputation of Scottish lawyers” will suffice to entice more than a trickle of blinkered investors to the shores of bonny Scotland.

Thomas Crooks

Dundas Street

Edinburgh