Conduct and serviceWrap up the loose endsComplaints to the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) often show how some firms let matters slide once the main work has been finished.

There can be many reasons for this.

Sometimes solicitors appear to think all the hard work has been done and the rest is easy, so they get on with more pressing jobs.

So the matter is put aside, usually with the intention to finish it at the first opportunity.

But there always are more pressing tasks.

Time flies past, so when the matter is attended to again, ages have passed without anything having been done.However, those are not always the circumstances.

One OSS case showed how easy it is for a firm to get so involved in trying to resolve matters that it forgets to pursue the course down which the matter will ultimately have to go if amicable resolution fails.The solicitors had been involved in complicated litigation which was eventually settled when the complainant accepted a payment into court.

The costs then fell to be taxed.

Understandably, the solicitors asked a costs draughtsman to prepare a bill.

The file was so immense that it took the draughtsman four months.

The solicitors then started trying to agree the bill with the defendant's solicitors.After almost a further year it became apparent that agreement was not going to be possible.

Thus, 15 months had passed without the bill being filed at court for taxation.

In fact, the bill was not filed for a further nine months - what was happening during those nine months is not clear and the suspicion has to be that nothing was done.Perhaps the solicitors suddenly realised how much time had passed since the event giving rise to taxation and the consequential difficulties.

If so, they only added to the problem by delaying matters further.Eventually the defendants precipitated matters by filing an application to disallow the claimant's costs.

Fortunately for the solicitors the application was resisted, but this did not avert the complaint of delay from the client.

At least the firm recognised the error of its ways and admitted responsibility for nearly two years' delay in filing the bill for taxation, a mistake that cost them 250 in compensation.

The moral is clear.

If you try to agree your costs with the other side, ensure the bill is lodged for assessment within the time limit allowed.

Attaching a deadline to the negotiations both concentrates the mind and averts further problems.l Every case before the compliance and supervision committee is decided on its individual facts.

These case studies are for illustration only and should not be treated as precedents.