The structure of the commercial legal world in the UK is at an impasse. It is not in partners' financial interests to radically address this pyramidic paradox, and New Labour quietly says - as Lord Falconer did on 17 October, and as we predicted in February - that outside investment will be nodded through Parliament without much further ado, bringing 'real market' economics to this profession... Hello - anyone out there?

Some of the City's top acquisition finance partners are getting tired (in all senses) of seeing star assistants work 100-hour weeks charged at £275 per hour for the client, while earning wages that, in the crunch times of a deal, amount to less than £15 per hour, and with future equity partner prospects being withered away by largesse among the current ownership structure. At the same time, a client at a major private equity house told me how angry she was that the two-year qualified assistant at a Magic Circle firm she's instructing was pulling in £80,000 a year while asking her questions about how to structure a document. 'What am I paying for?' she said, exasperated. Will the management partners of mid-to-large UK law firms kindly wake up and smell the CVs.

Tom Freeman, Editor