Mr Justice Michael Burton has entered the solicitor-advocate debate with a bang. As we reported last week, he told a meeting packed with solicitor-advocates that they were starving the junior bar of work, thereby threatening the very future of the Bar.

What he said is not new – barristers and many senior solicitors have been articulating the same warning for several years now. But it is certainly significant that a senior judge, working at the coal face, felt the need to express these fears.