Janet Paraskeva looks at the improvements made by the Law Society in dealing with service complaints over the last three years, and considers the future of its regulatory role

The Law Society's offices in Redditch and Leamington Spa are the powerhouses of the Society's regulatory and consumer redress activities.

Between them, these offices accommodate 750 of the Society's staff and the activities that take place there account for 70% of the Society's budget.

The Society strives hard to represent the profession well and is proud of its law reform work.

But regulating solicitors is a vital role provided by the Society both for solicitors and the public.

It includes controlling entry to the profession by registering solicitors and checking their qualified status, accrediting qualifying training courses for entry, setting ethical rules and standards of conduct, monitoring and compliance, enforcement and discipline.

It also provides redress for consumers.

As a regulator, the Society's work underpins the reputation of solicitors and provides their professional hallmark.

High standards and effective regulation are the features which distinguish solicitors from the unqualified sector of the legal services market.

Over the past three years, the Society has been working hard to modernise every aspect of its regulation.

This includes its review of the education and training framework for solicitors, and a complete overhaul of the rules of professional conduct, modernising them and taking account of an environment where competition is driving the agenda.

The Society has also been working hard to improve the way it handles complaints from the public.

These are complaints which have not been dealt with by the solicitor's practice and which have, therefore, caused the client to become even more dissatisfied and sometimes angry.

Three years ago, the Society recovered from an all-time low, reducing its backlog of complaints from almost 20,000 to around 5,000.

The backlog had caused the then Lord Chancellor to set targets for the Society's complaints handling and to take reserve powers to appoint a Legal Services Commissioner who would fine the Society if those targets were not reached.

The Law Society Council is committed to improving its complaints handling and has invested heavily on behalf of the profession to try to improve things.

In the most serious cases, our investigation and enforcement work has been very successful in dealing with those few solicitors whose dishonesty brings the profession into disrepute.

But further improvement in handling complaints has not been easy.

Despite meeting, or almost meeting, challenging targets and comparing favourably with other complaint handlers in a range of jurisdictions, we reached stalemate.

In fact, matters were beginning to look worse.

Six months ago, we undertook a root-and-branch review of all our complaints work.

We also took account of the recommen-dations made by Sir Stephen Lander, the Independent Commissioner, and we are now in the process of establishing a separate directorate dealing solely with consumer complaints.

This will mean that we can focus our energy and resources specifically on this particular area of work and give it the direct management that it needs.

We are also introducing more streamlined procedures and have already significantly improved our telephony, making it easier for complainants to reach a member of our complaints handling team.

Handling complaints from dissatisfied customers is a job that is almost impossible to get right.

Before the complainant reaches us in the midlands, they have already had poor service from their solicitor, and have tried and failed to get satisfaction from that solicitor's firm.

It is also the area of the Society's work which is under the most public scrutiny.

It is vital that we get our complaints handling right and that we continue to improve.

Despite the fact that the number of transactions undertaken by the profession is huge - estimates vary between eight and 12 million per year - the number of complaints against solicitors is in fact very small.

However, that is not the perception of the public and, in any case, it still amounts to about 12,000 service complaints a year reaching the Society.

Complaints handling is only one aspect of the regulatory role undertaken by the Society on behalf of the profession.

It will be vital that, as the Society and the profession contribute to the independent review of the regulatory framework for legal services (to be undertaken by David Clementi), consideration is given to every aspect of that role.

The review is scheduled to report by December 2004.

The government will then consider its recommendations before setting out any plans for change in its manifesto for the next general election.

So any legislation would fall into the next parliament, being implemented no earlier than 2008.

Over the coming months, the Society will debate the future of its roles including the mainte-nance of profession-led regulation particularly in standard setting, monitoring and compliance, and discipline.

We look forward to a mature dialogue with the profession, with the review team and with the government about the options for the way forward.

After all, as a Law Society Council member remarked recently, it is worth remembering that, back in 1845, the Society was itself founded by a radical group of people who wanted higher standards and better regulation.

- Solicitors interested in joining one of the Law Society roadshow events on these issues, should e-mail Linda Winter at: linda.winter@lawsociety.org.uk.

Janet Paraskeva is the Law Society chief executive