Complaints down underI refer to the section 'complaints down under' in your very detailed feature article entitled 'Complaints Handling, Keeping the Client Happy' (see [2000] Gazette, 20 April, 33).

In dealing with 'co-regulation' in New South Wales your writer makes the comments 'it had happened elsewhere in Australia; for example in 1996, the state government of Victoria took away many of the regulatory powers of the professional body, the Law Institute, so membership is now voluntary and the responsibility for complaints handling is in the hands of an ombudsman.'That is wrong.

The passage of the Legal Practice Act, which made membership of the Law Institute voluntary, was preceded by a two-year inquiry by a government working party, which led to the Institute becoming a Recognised Professional Association (known as RPA).

Far from urging the government to remove the Institute from complaints handling, the working party went the other way.In practice, the institute through its regulatory arm, handles at first instance about five-sixths of all conduct complaints.

We also handle all the separate dispute matters raised by clients, which are usually about fees that the client believes excessive.In New South Wales there is to be a further inquiry into regulation of the profession.

In every Law Society publication from jurisdictions around the world I read of new inquiries.

In every jurisdiction, it appears, governments are determined to reinvent the wheel.

And ultimately it is the members of the legal profession who pay.

Valuable money is spent which could be put to better use.

It is not really all that difficult.

Give the client a proper framework in which to complain, give the handling of the complaint to professionals who know the territory and who can see whether someone is misbehaving, and give the client satisfaction that justice is being done, by providing for an independent right of review.

Then let's get on with it.Ian Dunn, chief executive officer, Victorian Lawyers RPA Ltd