Firms face late payment after the Legal Services Commission (LSC) suspended its new e-billing service just two weeks after launch.


LSC Online commenced on 5 November to enable firms to submit fee claims online, but was suspended indefinitely on 19 November owing to the slow performance of the website, which the LSC put down to the volume of users logging on at peak times.



The LSC advised firms that have yet to submit their October bills to do so using its new bulkload data spreadsheet, although paper submissions would also be accepted.



An LSC spokesman acknowledged it had been frustrating for users: 'Despite testing before launching the new service, it soon became apparent that the system was performing much slower than anticipated.'



Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said practitioners supported the new scheme, but its introduction was another example of inadequate change management.



Catherine Baksi