Solicitors face being “named and shamed” under plans to publish details of their complaints history on a website for the public.
Every one of 100,000 solicitors in England and Wales has also been issued with a warning card, reminding them that they risk disciplinary action if they do not disclose any “kick-backs” paid to insurance companies, estate agents or others for work to be referred.
Both measures are part of a crackdown on incompetent or unethical solicitors by the newly set up Solicitors Regulation Authority, the independent arms-length body now in charge of standards and conduct in the profession.
At present clients have no way of finding out how many complaints have been upheld against a law firm or solicitor. The only information available is the findings of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, which deals with the most serious complaints, and any conditions attached to a solicitor’s practising certificate.
There are increasing postings on websites from disgruntled clients about individual firms. But one such posting made the point that these were of little value, and can reflect simply whether the client lost a dispute or was successful.
Antony Townsend, the authority’s chief executive, said: “This is all about bringing in a new culture. It is about professional regulation in the public interest, and not professional regulation for the profession.”
At present there are about 18,000 complaints a year from members of the public arising from the one million-plus transactions carried out annually by solicitors in England and Wales. The plans for a website, now out for consultation, could include publication of any public reprimands or discpli-nary action taken when solicitors breach the profession’s code of conduct.
The majority of complaints — lesser grievances of shoddy work and poor service, which are handled by a sister body, the Legal Complaints Service — would also be published, so there would be a complete complaints record on view. In an interview with The Times, Mr Townsend said that the authority wanted to take tough action over the abuse of so-called referral fees — sums of up to £600 a case widely paid by law firms to receive work, mostly from insurance companies, to handle accident cases.
The authority had decided for now against a ban on such fees. Instead, he said, it was issuing the warning card, making clear that it would take action if solicitors did not disclose the fees to the public.
As well as the warning card, the authority is sending out teams of inspectors to check that firms were abiding by the rules. If not, he said, they would face disciplinary action by sanctions, such as public reprimands, rather than the full-blown route of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. He said: “The old-fashioned approach to discipline was designed to deal with gross misconduct and bad behaviour. Now we are moving into quality assurance, not drumming villains out of the club.”
The authority wanted ways to deal with solicitors publicly and swiftly, Mr Townsend added, and a public website that listed those firms against whom sanctions had been taken could provide that.
Where solicitors had reached a swift agreement with the client to put matters right, that could also be published, he said, adding: “It would be a less formal way of dealing with a complaint, but a more open one. It’s good news for the good guys in the profession because it’s in the interests of the entire profession, as well as the public, that those with a good record should be known about.”
He outlined several other measures under consideration by the solicitor-funded SRA, which costs £50 million a year to run and has 600 staff.
They include a new solicitors’ code of conduct, which would deal with conflicts of interest, and plans for continuing quality assurance, under which solicitors might have to be assessed regularly, or face “some form of periodic MoT as has been proposed for doctors”.
The authority plans to set out the skills and knowledge a solicitor should have at various stages of his or her career. At present they can set up in practice when qualified for three years without the authority having any power to require that they have busincess skills.
Mr Townsend took up his post last year after five years as chief executive of the General Dental Council, where he led a big programme of reform to modernise dental regulation.
A recent survey by the independent Legal Complaints Service found that almost two in three solicitors who received a complaint thought the client was unreasonable and difficult.
