A week to remember

Yes, I know good news remains in short supply. Legal firms are still announcing redundancies, and the Council of Mortgage Lenders has just poured cold water on hopes of a recovery in the housing market. We may, or may not, have reached the bottoming-out point - it seems to depend who you talk to and in what part of the country - but no one is yet claiming that recovery is just around the corner.

But we shouldn't let that detract from the big event of the year, so far as the Law Society of Scotland is concerned - the Law in Scotland conference this coming Friday and Saturday, 8 and 9 May. The headline speakers alone - the Attorney General, the Lord Advocate, the Lord Justice Clerk and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice - should provide enough copy to keep any editor busy for some time to come; but beyond that, I for one will find it hard to choose between the talks on offer in the four streams that run concurrently in the body of the programme.

The Society deserves credit for its determination at this time to put on a showpiece that will also offer a lot of hard practical information for solicitors. I suspect I will be feeling rather punch drunk by the end of it all; but I wouldn't miss it. I would be surprised if there are many lawyers who would not get their money's worth from joining the show at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

Happy birthday to us.