Society launches drive for excellence

In the first of a series on practice management issues, Maureen Miller explains that the Law Society wants a customer service culture, not just a reduction in complaints

Recent press comment about the level of complaints against solicitors has once again focused attention on what the Law Society and the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) are doing both to reduce the backlog of complaints to 6,000 by the end of the year and to reinforce the importance of client care throughout the profession.John Miller, who is leading the practice excellence initiative at the Society, explains: 'Client care is a subject that has been revisited time and time again and the Society has invested 10 million in the OSS, yet complaints continue to be made.

Over the past nine months, client care has been one of the most important strategic priorities for the Society, which is determined to bring about a pervasive service culture within the profession to root out the primary causes of complaints.

Under the banner of 'Practice Excellence', we have set up the practice excellence unit to create a high-profile, co-ordinated approach across the whole of the Law Society and to increase the momentum in the work that is already taking place internally and in conjunction with the OSS, the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Legal Services Ombudsman.'Client care will continue to be central to the unit but we will now act as the focal point to maximise the impact of the various separate initiatives across the Society to establish a clear focus on driving forward a service culture within the profession.

Over the past few months a number of initiatives have been launched that focus on the core theme of practice excellence.

Under its umbrella, the regional office client care programme around the country has already delivered key messages to over 3,000 practitioners and the target audience for this year is already well on the way to being exceeded.

'By our implementation of the client-care change plan, we intend to adopt a segmented approach which will involve targeting the consistently poorest performers and offering more support for the majority of firms who are working efficiently.

We will also be seeking to promote best practice using those firms who have already recognised the importance of quality standards to all aspects of service delivery and have been awarded the Lexcel certificate.'The unit, which incorporates the Lexcel team at the Law Society and the client care and compliance team at the OSS, has been conceived to reposition client care within the profession as from being merely complaints, compliance and Law Society practice rule 15 to an all-encompassing, client-focused, logical and profitable way to run a legal practice.

The unit is conscious of the need to take a tougher stance with the poorest performers at one end of the scale and to acknowledge the high standards achieved by those who have Lexcel certification.John Miller comments: 'Standing up for excellence in what you do and delivering work of a consistently high quality should be normal practice for law firms.

Unless you believe that and act accordingly, you cannot hold yourself in esteem nor can you expect the public to.

And, of course, practice excellence is good for the bottom line: delivering a consistently excellent service is the best marketing you could ever do: it means your clients return again and again and refer you on to others.

If you can demonstrate systems and procedures that reinforce your commitment to excellence through a quality mark such as Lexcel, it may even lead to a reduction in your insurance premium.'Over the next three months, the primary tasks for the unit are to:l Implement the client care change plan which includes the production of a range of support and training materials that will provide the profession with the skills needed to deliver a high standard of customer service.l Promote new practice rule 15 letters which will be designed to be more customer-friendly and develop tougher measures for those firms that refuse to comply with the in-house complaints procedures.l Work with those involved in setting the rules to ensure they are fully supportive of the need to drive a culture change within the profession.l Introduce and promote revisions to the Lexcel standard enhancing client care, risk management and complaints handling procedures.l Take a tougher stance against serial poor performers.l Develop further and lead initiatives from within the Law Society that will enhance the key elements of the client care change plan into 2001.l Focus on those firms that are consistently failing to perform to an acceptable standard and with the worst complaints records.John Miller explains: 'In bringing about such a culture change, the objective will be to ensure that practice excellence is not merely the aspiration of the few but that it should be the normal standard operated by all firms.

The Law Society is under no illusions that it has a duty both towards the profession as a whole to deal firmly with those firms that are continually bringing it into disrepute and a concurrent duty towards the public to ensure the provision of a quality legal service in keeping with the objectives of the Lord Chancellor.'OSS Director Jim Wagstaffe is confident that the office is on track to meet the Lord Chancellor's target figure by the end of 2000.

'Our primary duty is to ensure that we provide speedy delivery of a high quality service to complainants and I am confident that the measures are in place to achieve our targets at the end of this year.

'The Society has invested 10 million in the OSS and 150 extra staff were taken on during the winter of 1999.

Thanks to their hard work and commitment, the number of outstanding complaints has been cut from 17,000 in July 1999 to 11,300 by the end of June 2000.

In the last week of June, the case load fell by 374, the highest weekly performance so far.

We are also seeing a marked improvement in turnaround times and we are maintaining the quality of adjudication.

'While we work towards our own main objective of reducing our case load to 6,000 by the end of the year, we fully support the objectives of the practice excellence unit and will be working with them to maximise the impact of the client-care programme and to present a shared, cohesive message to the profession.

It is vital that solicitors themselves not only acknowledge the common sense of preventing complaints being brought in the first place but are also prepared to play their part in tackling and resolving them internally.

Maureen Miller manages the Law Society's practice excellence unit