UK Law Articles
These articles are reproduced from old newspapers. Whether you are looking for old articles about the Lord Chancellor's Department, or trying to find stories on solicitors, judges or courts, the law teacher article database is here to help you. You will find these articles useful for writing your law essays, law dissertations and law coursework.
The Times
June 30 1999
Lawyers told they risk losing self-regulation
BY FRANCES GIBB, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT
COMPLAINTS about lawyers are at an all-time high, jeopardising the Law Society's ability to protect the public, according to a report today.
The Legal Services Ombudsman warns lawyers that they may lose the right of self-regulation if they continue to fail to meet their own targets for handling complaints.
The report says that in the past 12 months, complaints about solicitors lodged with the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors have spiralled out of control. Extensive delays at the office, which has a backlog of 17,000 cases rising at 350 a month, are endemic and there is not even an orderly queue.
The delays leave complainants "infuriated", the report adds. "Some people are told that they will hear from the OSS within 12 weeks but do not hear anything for five months or more; others have to endure such delay without any explanation or apology." In some cases people wait seven months only to be told there is nothing the office can do to help, it says.
The damning indictment of the way the solicitors' profession handles complaints comes from Ann Abraham, the Legal Services Ombudsman. She points out that last year, one complaint was made for every 2.4 practising solicitors; one complaint for every 18 barristers; and one complaint for every five practising licensed conveyancers.
In her annual report, Ms Abraham says that the OSS has failed to meet its own targets and that its ability to protect the public is "by its own admission in jeopardy". She says that "self regulation is a privilege, not a right - and a privilege that can be taken away".
The Ombudsman conducted 1,658 investigations from January 1 last year to March 31 this year. In 67 per cent of cases, she was satisfied with the way the complaint was handled by the professional body. But this is down on the figure of 70 per cent in 1997.
Yesterday the Law Society, which has just voted for a £5.7 million overhaul of the OSS, said that in the next 18 months it planned to recruit 82 temporary case workers to clear the backlog and 23 extra permanent case workers so that from December next year all complaints would be resolved quickly and efficiently.
