By Anita Rice


The number of complaints made against solicitors rose by nearly a third more than expected in April, the Gazette can reveal.



Instead of the 1,077 complaints the Legal Complaints Service (LCS) forecast it would receive, it logged 1,410 complaints about service levels from consumers.



Of the additional 333 complaints lodged, 163 concerned coal miners' health compensation, which might be explained by additional publicity generated by the LCS itself in lodging complaints about deductions taken by some solicitors and trade unions, from miners' awards.



However, the remaining 170 additional complaints were spread across different fields of law including personal injury, probate, matrimonial, immigration, employment and commercial conveyancing. General enquiries about how to complain were also up by 8% on forecast levels.



LCS chief executive Deborah Evans said: 'The rise in complaints is an interesting development given there appears to be no single cause... I would like to think that our attempts to make the LCS more visible and accessible are also paying dividends.' She said it was too early to tell if the hike in complaints was the start of a trend.



Mark McLaren, public affairs adviser at consumer organisation Which?, said the rise could indicate that consumers are becoming more aware of their right to complain about lawyers as a consequence of the LCS's proactive approach.



He added: 'We always said there might be a hidden number of complaints because consumers were not aware of their right to complain. They may be unhappy but they didn't do anything about it... In the long term we would like to see the number of complaints falling.'