The Law Society has announced that - for a nine-month trial period starting on 1 March 2004 - it will consider complaints from a wider range of beneficiaries to wills or trusts.

It will also, where appropriate, try to resolve complaints before the administration of an estate has been completed.

Until now, some complaints from people who are not clients and those relating to ongoing or uncompleted administrations have been excluded.

However, the Law Society's compliance board has accepted a recommendation from the Independent Commissioner, Sir Stephen Lander, that 'timely redress be provided for beneficiaries who have genuinely suffered detriment as a result of poor service from a solicitor, but without involving the Society in contentious issues more properly the preserve of the Family Division'.

The Law Society is acutely aware of the issues that can arise when, for instance, the lay executors instruct solicitors administering an estate to limit communication with certain beneficiaries in order to preserve the estate against unnecessary costs.

There are limits to the extent to which the Society can provide redress in some of these new cases.

The limits exist in statute.

However, the compliance board has requested a more proactive and imaginative use of the available powers together with a greater emphasis on resolution by conciliation and the opening or restoration of channels of communication.