Abraham: complaints still a concern

INTERVIEW: Legal Services Ombudsman calls for alternative dispute resolution to settle minor negligence cases

From her gleaming new offices in central Manchester, Ann Abraham, the Legal Services Ombudsman, is dividing her time between blue-sky thinking about the regulation of the legal profession, and the nitty-gritty of dealing with on-the-ground complaints handling.

Her big-picture proposals regarding a unified regulator for all legal services in England and Wales are yet to be fleshed out (see page 1), but they will doubtless be the subject of much debate during an envisaged government consultation.

However, the daily grind of complaints handling is something about which Ms Abraham has a fully formed and robust opinion.

Last year, she told the Gazette of her optimism following 'significant progress' made at the Law Society and the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS).

The former had made long strides in putting its corporate governance in order, and the latter had successfully tackled the huge complaints backlog.

This year, Ms Abraham is much more reticent.

She has sounded an alarm bell over a rising caseload at the OSS and the quality of casework - which, she says, 'seems to have reached a plateau'.

Indeed, Ms Abraham registered her concern with the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, last January, invoking her statutory powers to make recommendations about the way the professional bodies organise their complaints-handling activities.

She made a series of suggestions to Lord Irvine, one calling for the Law Society to issue guidelines to approved insurers creating a referral system relating to complaints and negligence claims - something which she maintains has disappeared following the demise of the Solicitors Indemnity Fund.

Ms Abraham would also like to see a greater use of alternative dispute resolution techniques in arguments between solicitors and their clients, saying: 'It would be useful to have at least a pilot scheme of some sort of arbitration arrangement for settling minor negligence cases.

[Currently] there are only two tools available to the OSS.

At one end of the scale, for very minor issues, it can pick up the phone to both parties and see whether they can agree a settlement.

Then there is the full range of powers, with all of the process that goes with that, leading to formal determinations.

'But in the middle there is nothing which enables a solicitor and an unhappy client to come together to look at a set of circumstances involving a claim of, say 3,000.

No solicitor is going to put his hand in his pocket and say OK to that, but equally the complainant isn't going to take out a negligence claim for 3,000.'

Ms Abraham has also told Lord Irvine that she is concerned about accountability and consultation regarding complaints handling in the solicitors' profession.

She also suggests that the Law Society 'should be much more inclined to have a proper dialogue with stakeholders regarding the [consumer redress] scheme, its implementation and development'.

The recent appointment of Sir Stephen Lander as the Society's independent commissioner has encouraged Ms Abraham, but she remains reluctant to comment in detail.

'What I hope he will do very early on,' she says, 'is come and talk to me.'

What the ombudsman and her increasing staff - she has funding for four caseworkers to add to the existing 17 - are doing is talking to clients.

And she is disappointed that there are still 'serial poor performers' operating in the legal profession.

'Poor performance is across the board in the profession.

Of course I see a lot of high street practices, but I also see some of the big names.

Our own research shows that something like half of the firms in the country have featured in some way in a reference to this office, and that certainly includes some of the big names.'

Jonathan Ames