The head of the Solicitors Regulation Authority is open to talks about creating a single complaints handler amid her own concern that clients are confused by the current system.
Sarah Rapson, who became chief executive last November, said people are unsure whether they should go to the SRA or to legal ombudsman when they are unhappy with their lawyer. The SRA handles complaints about conduct while the ombudsman deals with complaints about service, but in practice the lines between the two become blurred. Both organisations have reported a sharp increase in complaints in recent months, perhaps brought about by clients using generative AI.
Rapson, giving evidence to the Commons justice select committee, said that while the ombudsman deals with service complaints, once they become a pattern it becomes an issue for the SRA. She added: ‘As someone fairly new to the sector trying to work out how on earth a member public would know who to go to, I think this is really difficult territory. We know that LeO has got backlogs and we’re also getting high volumes of reports about solicitors, so our work in progress is also increasing. It’s not a happy tale.’
Rapson said the sector will need to ‘have a conversation’ about whether the current system needs to change, noting that the SRA is already acting like a ‘quasi-ombudsman’ but without the same powers.
‘People come to us and they are expecting redress but what do we do? We can open an investigation [but[ that is never going to put you back to dealing with whatever the misconduct was from the solicitor.’
Rapson said the SRA needs to do a ‘far better job’ of taking the intelligence from individual reports about solicitors to identify systemic harm. This type of intelligence-gathering would be an important tool, she added, for spotting the signs of a firm collapse such as those at SSB Law and PM Law.
On PM Law, the Sheffield-headquartered group shut down in February by the SRA, Rapson said there is now enough evidence to upgrade the situation from a potential fraud to a suspected one. She also confirmed that client money is missing but did not reveal how much.
Rapson said an internal review of the SRA’s handling of PM Law would be completed within weeks. It has already been established that client complaints were made in the years leading up to the group’s sudden closure, and Rapson said it was important to establish whether these were treated individually which may have meant warning signs were missed.
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