Dead good idea

solicitors, hapless advocates and impressively incompetent QCS are formidable barriers regarding access to justice.

Even at their best, many of Scotland’s lawyers are still not good enough to be classified as mediocre.

Consequently, the quality of legal representation available to litigants in Scotland almost ensures that for many, the outcome of the litigation will be calamitous.

Benevolent “regulation” of solicitors, advocates and QCS by the Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Advocates greatly enhances the prospect of total exoneration when their clients send in scores of complaints about the conduct and “expertise” of their lawyers.

Scotland’s legal set-up appears almost designed to ensure that the only beneficiaries of litigation are the lawyers. If they are lucky, a few clients will emerge from the quagmire of our absurd legal However Michael Preston (Letters, 24 August) intended his letter, the suggestion of the issue of cardboard coffins to the elderly is worth serious consideration – our present burial or cremation of expensive