THE life of the law is to some extent cyclical.

When the sector is booming, property firms do very well generally. In times when property doesn’t do so well, they suffer.

But litigation firms come into their own – they are more recession proof.

People will always make claims and will always have accidents. That’s not decided by the economy.

Whilst at the moment both residential and commercial property are undoubtedly having a tough time, they won’t go.

They might have to trim their sales to deal with the conditions but they will come back.

Overall, I don’t think the big picture of legal firms on Merseyside is going to change much because of the recession.

But there seems to be an invisible campaign by the Government to get rid of the small firms,the sole practitioner and sole trader, which is a shame.

They’re trying to drive out the small firms – especially criminal lawyers – with regulation.

Regulation is all very well, but more regulation suits the big firms because they have the critical mass.

Criminal lawyers don’t get paid for a lot of things that they did a year ago because of changes to the legal aid system.

There are also hundreds of people coming out of higher education with no chance of getting a job because there’s too many people qualified to do law and the jobs aren’t there.

If the face of firms in Merseyside is going to change it’s not necessarily due to the recession, it’s due to the Government.

They’re making it harder to become a solicitor even though they’re mostly ex-lawyers themselves.

In five years’ time, if the economy picks up, in broad terms the make-up of firms in this area isn’t going to be too different. Some firms will go, some will start up.