A solicitor is entitled to be defensive and perhaps even antagonistic when defending himself in a formal Law Society investigation, a High Court judge ruled last month.

The ruling came in a rare successful judicial review of a Consumer Complaints Service (CCS) finding against a solicitor.


The CCS decided that Tom Bramall, sole principal of Burton-on-Trent firm Talbot & Co, had failed to operate an adequate complaints procedure on the basis that his attitude to the complaint had been defensive and antagonistic after it had been made to the office, even though the substantive complaint was dismissed.


However, Mr Justice Richards found flaws in the decision-making process at the CCS and granted the application for judicial review. He ruled that in principle it was possible for a finding of inadequate professional services to be based on a solicitor's conduct after the Law Society had become involved.


However, it was not clear in this case how Mr Bramall's handling of the investigation by the CCS was relevant to the finding that he had failed to operate an adequate internal complaints-handling procedure.


The judge said a solicitor's conduct of his defence in the course of an investigation by the CCS should not be assessed by the standards applicable to his internal complaints-handling procedure, but there was nothing to show that any such distinction had been drawn here.


He found there was no sign of any recognition that a solicitor was entitled to act in a defensive manner and use forceful language when defending himself in a formal investigation; in any case, the judge said the firm had not gone too far in its representations.


Mr Bramall said: 'I am pleased that my firm has been vindicated by the court.'


A Law Society spokesman responded: 'We are naturally concerned to have been unsuccessful in defending the judicial review proceedings, but the finding that it is possible in principle for a finding of inadequate professional services to be based on a solicitor's conduct after the Society has become involved is a helpful clarification.'