Right to reply?

If another solicitor's firm writes to you, do you have to reply? This question causes frequent anxiety, not to mention frustration, among solicitors.

Solicitors understandably feel a sense of outrage when they write letters to other solicitors on behalf of their client, but don't get an acknowledgement, let alone a response.

It is very lame then to have to tell the client that they are getting no response from the other side and that is why they are unable to progress their matter.

Inevitably, this provokes outrage from the client, who is liable to demand that the other solicitor be reported to the Law Society.

Not only that, but large numbers of solicitors believe there is a duty to respond to correspondence from other practitioners.

However, one will search the Rules of Professional Conduct in vain to find any such requirement.

When this is pointed out to those who believe there is a duty, the reaction is often one of surprise.

However, the reason is not hard to find - what does one do if one's own client specifically instructs that no response be sent? After all, the client might not want to have anything to do with the matter in question, or to incur the costs that any response might involve.

With some justification, one could argue that it would be a courtesy at least to write to the other solicitor and tell him what the position was.

But there is no obligation to do so.

However, as in all things to do with the law, there is an exception to this 'rule'.

It arises when a solicitor writes a letter to another on behalf of that solicitor's former client.

Principle 12.10 of the Guide to the Professional Conduct of Solicitors, 1999, eighth edition, states: 'a solicitor should deal promptly with communications relating to the matter of a client or former client.' That must be taken to include a letter sent by another solicitor now instructed by the former client.

Misunderstandings arise frequently.

One such instance occurred when a client wanted to deal with a property he owned and instructed solicitors in the area to which he had moved, telling them that his former firm held the deeds.

The new solicitors wrote to the old, requesting the deeds.

They got no response.

Reminders met with the same result.

The matter was reported to the Law Society, which was told by the former solicitors that they did not hold the deeds.

After investigating, they were able to produce a letter indicating that the deeds had been sent to their former client some years before.

In the end, they still had to spend the time they had been trying to save, but the client had been inconvenienced and the reputation of the profession damaged.

Every case before the adjudicator is decided on its individual facts.

This case study is for illustration only and should not be treated as a precedent