Editor's Comment: Actual best of British

A senior partner of a large firm asked recently why we don't do more to shout out about the success story of British law. Since we bang on about that theme quite often in these pages it seemed an odd observation, but on reflection you can see the point. Despite 15 years of solid growth from the UK economy, this nation is still not exactly over-burdened with business successes, even in the service sector which increasingly drives the nation. After all, the securities industry folded like a deck of cards when foreign entrants hit the market in the 1980s, yet arrogant investment bankers are not in short supply in the City.

Accountancy, pharmaceuticals and the creative industries have done a bit better for Blighty, but against this backdrop it is hard to see any yardstick by which legal services cannot be viewed as one of the outstanding global successes for the UK's economy. Not only does the UK legal services market continue to expand and now comfortably exceed £15bn, but UK law firms have managed the feat of comprehensively outclassing all global rivals bar the US firms - and they are backed by the largest, most litigious legal market in the world. In addition, UK firms have consistently innovated, often well before they had to. It is true that City firms have had their share of luck in recent years - notably the collapse of the dollar and the rise of the Square Mile - but good businesses make their own luck and the also-rans are never quite able to capitalise on good fortune.

Not that you would ever know any of this from picking up a newspaper, where lawyers are frequently derided as fat cats and prevaricators holding back those brave commercial risk-takers. And we're not talking about the tabloids - commercial law firms are regularly snidely written off in the City pages of broadsheets which spend half their time lionising this year's masters of the universe.

There is, of course, an entirely legitimate debate to be had about income inequality and, at a time when top law firms are cracking the £1m average profits barrier, it is inevitable that law firms will get a little flak. Yet it is bizarre that in the age of the non-doms, hedgies and buy-out barons, it is City lawyers who are getting it in the neck. I guess much of it is really down to the strong streak of introspection and insecurity that runs through the profession, which doesn't encourage self-promotion. The question is how much longer such tendencies can keep lawyers' mounting successes unsung.