A consumer champion has called for complaints about lawyers’ service and conduct to be brought together in a single risk and intelligence hub.
Paul Crook, a board member of the Legal Services Consumer Panel, said the complaint-handling functions of the SRA and legal ombudsman should effectively be merged into one central space. Writing in a blog on the panel’s website, Crook said the collapse of SSB Law and the failure of the SRA to link together more than 100 reports about the Sheffield firm was proof that the present system is not working properly.
A report by the Legal Services Board found the SRA missed key signs of potential misconduct at the claims firm by failing to act on reports that had been made over five a five-year period.
Crook said a unified risk and intelligence hub could flag firms showing early signs of systemic failure and allow for a quicker response. This would replace the ‘artificial chasm’ that has developed between service and conduct complaints and which ‘sacrifices consumer protection on the altar of bureaucratic convenience’.
‘The SRA’s approach has been historically reactive and atomised,’ said Crook. ‘Reports from consumers were often treated as isolated, low-level grievances rather than vital intelligence strands in a larger risk profile. The [LSB] report suggests a mindset where a critical mass of similar “service” complaints did not automatically trigger a holistic review of the firm’s financial stability, advertising practices or management integrity.’
Crook suggested the SRA had been shown to have a ‘culture of complacency’ and required a shift from a dispute resolution mindset to one of intelligence gathering.
This would require training investigators to look for patterns and connections, not just to process individual cases. Staff should also be empowered to raise concerns about a pattern of risk rather than being bound to only act when a threshold of misconduct has been met.
An intelligence hub, Crook added, could combine LeO service complaint data, SRA reports and inspection findings, formal and informal whistleblower findings, financial and operational data from firms and information from other bodies. He said that a cluster of minor billing complaints, when paired with a report about misleading advertising and data about cash-flow, would automatically trigger proactive, targeted supervision.
The LSB has sanctioned the SRA with action requiring it to improve its complaint handling and internal systems. The solicitors' regulator has apologised for not acting sooner to protect clients of SSB Law.
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