With business for solicitors, accountants, architects and engineers increasingly driven by international trends, the staid Irish firms have had to adapt, according to organisers of the Professional Marketing Forum.

"For a professional services firm to even have a tagline is a recent development in Ireland, " said Adrienne Regan of marketing consultancy Regan Lowey, who set up the Irish branch of the forum in 2002.

The group now boasts representatives of some 40 firms.

In the past decade, attitudes within professional services firms towards marketing have changed. From being closed organisations that relied on word of mouth to spread their reputations and showcase their expertise, companies are increasingly turning to the sort of marketing techniques that have long been employed in other industries.

Part of this may have to do with people's experience of having worked abroad. Perhaps a quarter of the firms represented in the PM Forum are now led by people with professional experience gained overseas, according to Regan.

"There's a sense that Ireland had been behind the UK.

Now the need to adopt best practices is an idea that gets greater acceptance, " said Regan. Tried and tested tactics . . . such as what is still euphemistically termed 'client entertainment' . . . have been joined by more innovative programmes, including sponsorships such as the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

But the most radical approach may be the one offered by Regan herself . . .

research that asks the clients of lawyers, architects and engineers how they'd prefer their advisers to sell to them.

The most radical approach of all, however . . . getting the denizens of highly specialised firms to speak in plain English . . . might still be a long way off.

The forum will meet this week at the law offices of Mason, Hayes & Curran, details can be found at www. pmforumglobal. com.