Conduct and service

GOOD PRACTICE

First, there was rule 15

Those solicitors who train their staff well and who maintain good quality practice manuals are probably fed up with being reminded about practice rule 15.

However, in reality, nearly everything to do with managing an efficient firm emanates from there.

It does no harm to remember that good observance of rule 15 - and compliance with the obligation to address complaints, in whatever form they might be made - will reduce the volume of service complaints by a huge margin.

From time to time, inexperienced solicitors and fee-earners will join your practice.

It might be helpful to remind them that because the firm has acted for a client in the past, it does not relieve the necessity for proper client care and costs information at, or as near as possible to, the outset of a new retainer.

In the best organised of practices, an enthusiastic junior fee-earner who knows that the firm has acted for a client for many years might assume that there is no need for client- care information when addressing a new problem.

It is a reasonable enough assumption, and one that frequently results in a complaint and a finding of inadequate service.

Except on those occasions where regular work is being carried out for the same client, it is necessary to provide a client-care letter and an outline of what the solicitor is to do, together with as much costs information as possible.

Unless the work is truly repetitive and involves the same set of circumstances in each case, and where a fixed fee or other similar charging structure has been agreed, it is necessary to send the information, even though the clients may say that they do not want it.

Solicitors should keep an eye out for the hidden complaint.

Such a situation might well arise in correspondence where a degree of concern is expressed by a client but where the less experienced fee-earner might not necessarily link it to a reason for reporting it to the principal.

If you do not know about it, you cannot address it.

It pays to understand that everything starts with rule 15 and, where quality conciliation is required, it should finish with rule 15.

This column is written by a Law Society adjudicator