The National Consumer Council recently published 'Solicitors and client care', its report on the research by Dr Neville Harris of Liverpool University and made a number of recommendations based on the results of the research.The report makes eight recommendations for action by the Law Society some of which should, I believe, be approached with caution.

One suggestion is the beefing up of the action taken against solicitors who fail to tell clients in advance how much the case is going to cost and another recommendation proposes a practice rule requiring all firms to provide a written outline of their complaints procedure to clients as a matter of course.The report concedes that there are difficulties which confront solicitors over always telling all clients in advance how much a case will cost.

There are many cases in which the solicitor simply cannot do that.

Certainly, it should be possible to pre-estimate costs in some cases and in others to say how costs will be calculated.

The present regulations (in the form of written professional standards) already provide for this.

The NCC believes a practice rule would be more effective but, as has already been pointed out by Chris Heaps, chairman of the Law Society's adjudication and appeals committee, in the context of costs, clients have a more effective remedy against a solicitor who breaks written professional standards than they do against a solicitor who breaks rules.

The solicitor faces double jeopardy.

Not only may costs be reduced but an award of compensation of up to £1000 can be made.

Equivalent sanctions are simply not on offer to the client who is complaining about breach of a practice rule.If the NCC is concerned about the most effective way of getting home to solicitors the message that they should do their best to give advance information about costs, the last thing that should be done is to replace the standards with a new rule.It seems to me that the NCC has also misunderstood the client care practice rule 15.

Sub-clause 1 provides: 'Every principal in private practice shall operate a complaints handling procedure which shall, inter alia, ensure that clients are informed whom to approach in the event of any problem with the service provided.' It is diffi cult to reconcile this with the suggestion that the rule is insufficiently prescriptive and the proposal that the Law Society should revise the rule by incorporating a requirement that all firms always provide a written outline of their complaints procedure to clients.It is worth drawing attention to the very high level of client satisfaction which is demonstrated in many parts of the report.

Some 80% of clients considered the service good or very good.

Of the relatively few clients who complained, only one in six was unhappy with the way in which the complaint was handled and just over half were either satisfied or very satisfied.

This compares very favourably with a 1991 survey by the Office of Fair Trading which found that only 36% of people with complaints about services felt satisfied with the outcome.The suggestion that all clients should be provided with a complaints procedure outline (one has to assume at the outset of a case) must be tested from the point of view of both clients and the profession.

We are also entitled to ask where you draw the line in the 'written outline'.

Do clients really want ever-increasing bundles of bumph immediately following their first visit to a solicitor?We must keep in the forefront of our minds the knowledge that many people who consult solicitors are in a state of anxiety which can vary from mild to extreme.

In the sort of practice were I work, clients often come to see us because they are in distress or in a rush and they have a problem which needs solving.

We should be looking to help and to build their confidence, not to shatter it.We must also look at this question from the solicitors' point of view.

It is vitally important not to lose sight of this if a national network of independent legal advisers is going to survive that to which it is already being subjected.

Too often now one reads that people who should be championing the legal profession are denigrating us instead.

Too many solicitors have entered voluntary arrangements or gone bankrupt, many have been forced into premature sales of their businesses and/or retirement and tragically some have committed suicide with the pressures facing them at the moment.Anyone who reads the NCC report receives the overall impression that solicitors are doing better than many professions when it comes to looking after their clients; to suggest that before you start work on a client's case you must tell the client how to complain if you get it wrong is demotivating and unnecessary.The present rule is absolutely right in providing that, at an early stage, solicitors should say to the client something like: 'If you are happy with the service I give you please tell your friends, if you are unhappy with it please tell me.' Of course, solicitors should have a complaints handling procedure and if a client does complain, the procedure must be activated.

None of this needs a change in the present rule.There is a rather worrying trend developing at the moment which is a sort of regulatory paranoia - if in doubt make new rules and enforce them more rigorously than before.

The better course is first to identify the problem, secondly to see if regulation is the best answer and, if so, thirdly to make sure you get the regulation right.

Regulatory overkill is not the answer in this case where more persuasion is infinitely to be preferred to more prescription.I am increasingly told by solicitors that we need less regulation not more.

If there is a clear cut need for regulation the Law Society has never hesitated in making rules, nor will it do so, b ut it must be borne in mind that over regulation inevitably means some good and some bad rules.

When the bad debase the good this is directly contrary to the public and the professional interest.