Conduct and service

The high price of doing nothingIn some complaints to the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS), the solicitor's actions - or lack of them - appear to be simply inexplicable.

One such complaint stemmed from a case in which the solicitors had been instructed to make a claim for damages for personal injuries caused to their client during the course of his employment.The matter does not appear to have been handled with any efficiency from the outset.

The limitation period had almost expired before the writ was issued.

The case was eventually settled when, three years later, an acceptable payment into court was made.

During the next three months there were some unsuccessful negotiations about costs, but after that nothing of significance.

From time to time the defendant's solicitors wrote asking the solicitors to submit a bill for taxation, but to no avail.

Eighteen months after acceptance of the payment-in, the defendant's insurer's solicitors made an application to the court.Taxation eventually took place some months later, with the court ordering a significant reduction in the solicitor's costs and the complainant to pay the costs of the application that led to eventual taxation.As the complainant had been legally aided, it was then necessary to report the matter to the Legal Aid Board (as it then was), but apart from initial correspondence in which the damages were sent to the board, the matter again went to sleep.

Nothing happened for almost two years.

By then, the complainant had lost patience and raised his complaints with the solicitors.

These were ignored, along with subsequent letters from the OSS.The complaints of delay, failing to account, failing to keep the client properly informed throughout and properly advised about the taxation process were upheld.

Noting the solicitors' failure to fulfil their responsibilities in dealing with the complaint, the OSS made a compensatory award against them of 3,000 and ordered them to indemnify the complainant against the award of costs against him and provided that the solicitors should not be able to claim any solicitor/client costs against their client.The complainant appealed and the tribunal, expressing the view that it was hard to imagine a worse case, increased the compensatory award to the maximum allowable of 5,000, while preserving the remaining parts of the order.

All in all, an object lesson that burying one's head in the sand does not solve problems and can be extremely expensive.l Every case before the adjudication panel is decided on its individual facts.

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