Handling: Legal Complaints Service argues proposed office must be a one-stop shop


The relationship between the Law Society and the Legal Complaints Service (LCS) may need to be renegotiated, the LCS board warned last week, in the wake of a serious disagreement between the pair.



The problem arose following a joint briefing on the Legal Services Bill the Law Society and Bar Council submitted to peers last month (see [2007] Gazette, 11 January, 4). In it, President Fiona Woolf said Chancery Lane was 'content' to back Bar Council calls that the proposed office for legal complaints (OLC) should have the power to delegate the handling of service complaints back to frontline regulators - although the Society would not seek such delegation itself.



The LCS strongly opposes this - arguing that the OLC must be a one-stop shop - but only learnt about the briefing from the Gazette. It says the failure to consult and inform was contrary to the spirit of the agreement governing its relationship with the Law Society. It was further angered by the briefing's failure to make clear that the view was held by the Law Society as

a representative body, and not the LCS.



At last week's LCS board meeting, lay member Andrea Cook said it raised issues over a lack of dialogue with the Society, and suggested that the agreement may have to be revisited. 'You cannot have an agreement that one party chooses to ignore,' she said.



Board chairman Professor Shamit Saggar told the Gazette that the Society's actions were 'against the spirit of an arm's-length relationship'.



While acknowledging that the Society was free to hold its own view - which is a key element of the separation arrangements - he was nonetheless critical of it. 'For the president to say something is okay for the bar but not for solicitors is not convincing in the eyes of every stakeholder except the chairman of the Bar Council,' he said.



The Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed last week that it too opposes delegation.



Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson said: 'The council has delegated to the LCS the Law Society's current responsibilities for dealing with consumer complaints. The council has not delegated responsibility for Law Society policy on the future arrangements for handling consumer complaints under the Legal Services Bill. We know that the LCS take a different view on the amendment relating to delegation of consumer complaints to approved regulators. and they will no doubt express that.'



Neil Rose