Professions

Compensation scheme - client's dissatisfaction with quality of solicitor's service - policy of awarding statutory maximum in exceptional cases not irrational

R (Haycock) v Law Society: CA (Lords Justice Ward and Sedley): 17 June 2003

An adjudicator, acting under paragraph 3 of schedule 1A to the Solicitors Act 1974, ordered the solicitor to pay the maximum compensation of 5,000 for breaking his agreement, as approved by the Law Society, with a client who was dissatisfied with the quality of the service which he had provided.

An adjudication panel of the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors upheld the adjudicator's decision.

The solicitor sought judicial review of the amount of the award.

Mr Justice Andrew Collins dismissed the claim.

The solicitor appealed.

The solicitor in person; Derrick Dale (instructed by Wright Son & Pepper) for the Law Society.

Held, making no order on the appeal consequent on the Law Society's undertaking to reconsider the order in the light of the adjudicator's factual error, that schedule 1A to the Solicitors Act 1974 had effect 'with respect to the provision by solicitors of services which are not of the quality which it is reasonable to expect of them', paragraph 3 setting the maximum amount payable at 5,000; that there was manifestly no room for a purely punitive element in any award but the amount should reflect not only any stress and inconvenience to the client but also the persistence and contumacity of the solicitor's misconduct; and that 5,000 was not a large sum and providing regard was had to the fact that it was the ceiling, the policy of the Law Society of reaching it in exceptional (in the sense of particularly bad) cases was neither irrational nor improperly weighted against a solicitor.