Plans by the Legal Complaints Service (LCS) to write to all miners in a bid to determine whether solicitors wrongly deducted fees from their compensation claims will not overwhelm the service, its chief executive said last week.


Replying to questions at the Law Society Council meeting, Deborah Evans said the LCS is working with the Department for Trade & Industry on canvassing just one MP's constituency as a pilot and that, based on previous experience of widely publicising the service, it expected to receive around 200-300 complaints.



This sudden influx of complaints, she assured the council, was insignificant compared with the annual total of 18,000.



Immediate past president Kevin Martin complained that the can for the miners scandal was being carried by solicitors, when the government and unions should also be in the firing line.



Jonathan Rayner