Good relations

It must have taken some considerable imagination to write your front-page article (see [2000] Gazette, 19 October, 1), reporting the independent survey conducted by Hildebrandt International based on interviews of 265 solicitors across England and Wales, as to how solicitors view the Bar.

The key findings of the report were that solicitors had a 'high regard for barristers' services ...

and strong satisfaction with service quality' and that the vast majority thought the Bar good value for money.

Some 95% of respondents rated the skill and knowledge of counsel as very good (66%) or good (29%).

To twist these findings, as your correspondent has, is to misrepresent the report grotesquely.

The article then tried to paint a picture that solicitors were making regular complaints about barristers' services and were generally dissatisfied about the way in which they were handled.

Again this is a gross misrepresentation of the survey.

The findings were that, not surprisingly, a majority of solicitors had at sometime in their entire career had an unsatisfactory experience with a member of the Bar.

In an ideal world, of course, this would not happen, but as a matter of common sense it is inevitable that from time to time solicitor and counsel do not hit it off, for whatever reason.

Of those who complained, just under a quarter were not satisfied with the way in which their complaint was handled.

The corollary is that just over 75% were satisfied.

I don't what the results of an equivalent survey of client satisfaction with solicitors would be.

I would be delighted, but surprised, if it was as good.

The President of the Law Society has made it quite clear that complaint handling by many firms needs considerable improvement.

We are working through BarMark to improve complaint handling by chambers.

Finally, you asserted that the survey painted a 'grim picture' for the junior Bar.

This gloomy conclusion was derived from the statistic that just 13% of solicitors had changed their level of instruction of counsel, two-thirds to more senior counsel and one-third to more junior counsel.

The survey confirms what we already know.

A vast majority of solicitors value an independent Bar.

Yet relations between the leadership of the Bar Council and the Law Society have never been stronger.

It is high time that Law Gazette reflected this relationship.

The legal profession needs to stand together in the face of unprecedented challenges.

Jonathan Hirst QC, chairman of The Bar of England and Wales