It has been a long day.

Your last client comes in clutching a vast file including a number of dog-eared papers relating to his company pension scheme.

After the initial moment of panic has subsided and you have listened patiently to your new client's woes, what should you do?You could get the t rainee to undertake research, do a note and draft a letter of advice; you could buy a text book and do this yourself; or you could sub-contract the job to counsel.

However, this problem might better be solved by turning to either the pensions ombudsman or the Occupational Pensions Advisory Service.The office of the pensions ombudsman is unique.

Access is free and his jurisdiction covers not just breaches of trust but maladministration which is a much wider concept.

He can make orders without any upper financial limit which are binding on employers and trustees as well as the complainant.

The only appeal is on a point of law to the High Court.

In effect, the ombudsman is a one man pensions tribunal but without any right of appeal on questions of fact.The first ombudsman, Michael Platt, took office in 1991.

He was a career civil servant from the Department of Social Security, who set up the office and established its rules of procedure.

His annual reports are well worth reading.

He has now retired and his place has been taken by Dr Julian Farrand, who was formerly the insurance ombudsman (see [1994] Gazette, 9 November, 12).The ombudsman does have power to require the production of papers and the giving of oral testimony and to hold oral hearings although no oral hearings have so far taken place.However, before a case reaches the ombudsman, a client could be advised to resort to the Occupational Pensions Advisory Service.

OPAS was set up in 1983 to act as a conciliation and information service for aggrieved members of company pension schemes.

Following the enactment of the Social Security Act 1990 its jurisdiction was extended to cover personal pensions and its finances strengthened by an annual grant from the Occupational Pensions Board.So successful has OPAS been that 90% of members' complaints are resolved without the need for a reference to the ombudsman or litigation.

OPAS operates in a similar way to the citizens advice bureau service.

Its services are free.

It has a small office in central London (next door to the ombudsman) and has a paid staff of about ten.

Its strength lies in its network of voluntary unpaid advisers, spread throughout the country, who offer their services to deal with members' pension problems.

The OPAS advisers are drawn from the ranks of pension professionals such as actuaries, auditors, scheme administrators, fund managers, lawyers and pension consultants.

Cases are referred to them either direct from the local citizens advice bureau or from the London office.Would-be advisers are carefully checked for their competence and experience by the OPAS professional standards committee.

Their work is monitored by regional organisers and by the London office.

Advisers who abuse their position to sell the services of their firm or who take too long to deal with complaints or whose work falls below acceptable professional standards are asked to resign, failing which they are removed.

This is so even though their services are provided free of charge.

As a publicly funded body, OPAS takes the view that the maintenance of high standards of service is an absolute, regardless of whether advisers are paid.The pensions industry is unusual in that it has a highly developed, free information, conciliation and arbitration procedure.

Does this mean that pensions is a no-go area for solicitors? Before answering that question, let us take a quick look at a not untypical horror story.

A file several inches thick was received by OPAS from a member who complained that when he left his pension scheme, his transfer val ue was not as large as those of some of his colleagues.

This was quite true but was irrelevant in that all the members in question had received enhanced transfer values in excess of their legal entitlements and there was nothing to suggest that the trustees had unfairly discriminated against him.

Before going to OPAS, the member had consulted a local solicitor, with no pensions knowledge, who went to counsel, who also failed to understand the problem.

The result: no satisfaction plus a bill for £4000 all for taking an expensive look at a gift horse.Because pension law is an untidy amalgam of trust law, tax law and social security law, legal problems will usually be too difficult for the non-specialist who would be well advised to refer them to OPAS or a lawyer specialising in this area.

But for the specialist pension lawyer there is quite clearly a role.

It would probably make sense to advise a client to resort to OPAS first.

But if that fails, a skilled pension lawyer can be invaluable in preparing a complicated case for the ombudsman or for handling traditional pensions litigation in areas where there are gaps in the ombudsman's jurisdiction, eg disputes between the employer and the trustees or where it is felt that the High Court is a more appropriate forum.OPAS can be contacted at 11 Belgrave Road, London SW1V 1RB; tel 071-233 8080.

The ombudsman's address is also 11 Belgrave Road.