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Well, it's good news for the personal injury solicitors and no win, no fee lawyers that I work for - they're among the most trusted of the professional people in the UK. We know this because the polling organisation YouGov performed a survey and 'solicitors' have come out on top, ahead of 'barristers' - and, oddly enough, both have come ahead of 'lawyers', which is a bit like tigers being more liked than cats, but there you go.
Down the other end of the scale from my legal colleagues, there are estate agents, politicians and bankers, who get only one or two percent of the people interviewed trusting them. Sadly, however, the scale's not very long; between them, the legal professions scored a 24 percent trust rating.
But what that shows is how many people are prepared to say publicly that they trust all lawyers; it's not the same thing as asking if you trust the personal injury lawyer who worked tirelessly on your car accident claim, secured you work injury compensation, or sorted out your holiday accident claim. That question may well have a different answer; the YouGov stories in the papers show that only 18 percent of the people being asked the question had had any recent experience of lawyers working on their behalf.
It's also worth remembering that the story only covers about 2000 people; it's a big step to the millions in the UK from there. But there's still a likelihood that there's a sense of mistrust there; it must have come from somewhere, and if it's not exposure to real lawyers, it's probably going to be the ones from the TV and film that are having an effect. Because the story's generally been reported in a faintly light-hearted manner, though, it's not going to overturn the image of solicitors.
It's not that I'm going to pretend that the entire profession is angelic; that would drop me in the same position as the people being interviewed about whether all lawyers are trustworthy or not. But what I can say is that the relation of trust between the claimants we represent and the no win, no fee lawyers who do the actual representation is very important to us - and it's for that reason that we ensure they're all governed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, that they're all able to talk in plain English as well as the legalese that's needed in the pursuit of a compensation claim, and that we find the best personal injury solicitor for every claimant.
Which means we're not going to ask you to trust every lawyer - it's a good rule of thumb, after all, to doubt every sentence that has an "every" in it. If anyone has suffered a personal injury, though, we're going to work hard to ensure that he or she can trust the no win, no fee lawyer who's working on the case.
Meanwhile, we'll return to a little celebration of the fact that our guys got a higher trust score than the accountants in the office next door...
