Are solicitors qualified to be company bosses? Have we lost touch with the Forsyte Saga image of the lawyer as ‘a man of business’? Does the profession risk being boxed into a limited range of professional activities allowing other, more aggressive, professions to fill the void?
There is no doubt that the reputation of the commercial solicitor has never been higher. The City of London has been able to produce a body of expertise that is unmatched elsewhere in the world. About half of all the earnings of City firms are now derived from overseas sources and English law is increasingly the choice of jurisdiction for a large proportion of major international transactions.
