Quintin Jardine's blog

Having touched on the legal profession  in my previous post, I’m going to go back there. A few nights ago I saw a TV ad that grabbed me by its sheer artistry and made me watch it all the way to the end. You may have seen it. Built around a song by Rachel K Collier, it features a series of images of people  at significant points in their lives. It’s not until the very end that the viewer is told that the product being plugged is a brand called Quality Solicitors.

My first reaction was to yell disappointed abuse at the telly. There was a time when solicitors were forbidden, strictly, from advertising their services in a competitive marketplace, but somewhere along the line that was forgotten. In recent years we’ve been bombarded by the likes of Accident Lawyers 4 U, the Accident Helpline, Quantum Claims and all the rest, every one of them out to turn us into an aggressively litigious society by lighting up the £ signs, that most of us have somewhere in our peripheral vision. I detest them, and I was prepared to detest Quality Solicitors too, until I thought about what the ad was actually saying and how it was saying it. A little research informed me that Quality Solicitors is a network as are most of the ambulance chasers. However its pitch is different; it isn’t aggressive at all, and money is never mentioned. It’s saying to the viewer, ‘Look, at some point in life, you will need legal services. These are ours; we are sympathetic and we will be on your side.’

So now I’m fine with it. I’ve even bought the song, ‘A hard road to travel‘  on iTunes. That’s said, it’s still a competitive ad, and only those people who are within the QS network will benefit. So, might there not be a case for the Law Societies in Scotland and England to to a little generic advertising on behalf of the profession as a whole?