A darker shade of white

So who's still dreaming of a white Christmas? Or are we all just cursing our inability to get anywhere, or only at risk to life and limb?

OK, so the children are happy ("Does that mean more snow?" my 10-year-old daughter asked when the weather girl suggested there might be "some improvement" in the outlook.) And anyone planning just to settle round the fire and watch telly on Friday probably won't mind too much.

Many people however may be thinking that Bing's fond memories may be benefiting from the distance of the view. Or perhaps the scene conjured up belongs to an age when people just didn't need to travel like they do now, particularly to be with family.

The world is moving on, and yesterday's best case scenario may turn out, when we try to recreate it, to be quite out of place in the changed circumstances of today. All of which might help us pause and reflect, for example, on legal services reform. I don't underestimate for a minute the care that must be taken to safeguard professional ethics and independence if non-lawyers are allowed to invest in legal service providers. But it is not a sufficient objection to say that the profession has managed fine up to now, when all around us others are finding or planning ways to encroach on solicitors' traditional areas of work.

Let fresh thinking be the order of the day - and that should apply to practices who prefer to retain the conventional model as much as to the innovators. Planning a bright future for a legal practice shouldn't be any harder than designing a white Christmas fit for the modern world. Have a happy one anyway.