Fining Law Society Won't Work, Says Legal Expert

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

06 October 2003

Speaking to legal information publishing firm, Butterworths last week, former president of the UK's Law Society, Michael Matthews suggested that newly announced plans to impose large fines on the Society's complaints handling unit if it continued to fail to meet targets, are unlikely to benefit clients.

Following several years in which the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) consistently failed to meet deadlines for handling complaints, and also failed to deal with the number of cases that it had pledged to, Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer announced late last month the creation of the role of Legal Services Complaints Commissioner.

He went on to reveal that Legal Services Ombudsman, Zahida Manzoor had been selected to fill the position, and that she would be given powers to impose substantial fines on the Law Society if it again fails to meet its targets.

However, Mr Matthews told Butterworths that:

"If the theory is that fining the Law Society will make it concentrate more, I don't see how they can concentrate much harder than they have done. If it is to frighten the profession, so that they deal with complaints before they reach the OSS, then sadly I don't think it will work."

He added that: "Fines on the Law Society would be for not meeting targets, [but] the cost would then be added to solicitors' practising certificates. That is a fairly blunt instrument and would punish the good and bad alike."

The former Law Society chief suggested that the problem lies not in the fact that the profession as a whole is bad at handling complaints, but that a minority of the legal profession generates a majority of the complaints which end up before the OSS.

"I have no doubt the solution to the problem lies with getting a greater percentage of complaints dealt with in a satisfactory way by the firms which give rise to them," he observed, continuing: "I would guess there would be some sort of correlation between firms which attract the most complaints, and those which are under financial pressure."

Recommended