Solicitors savage consumers group for critical reports

Solicitors attacked the Consumers' Association for churning out reports which are critical of the profession.Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva joined delegates in telling the association's head of legal Ashley Holmes that 'rather than put adverts in the papers asking "have you had a bad service from a solicitor?", you could ask "have you had a good experience?".

You could stop [the bad reports] overnight.'Ms Paraskeva and Mr Holmes were on the panel at the plenary session looking at the 'big issues' facing lawyers.

Mr Holmes repeated the findings of the most recent Which? report, which he said characterised solicitors as 'arrogant, incompetent, negligent, unprofessional, patronising and rude'.

He said: 'We were only interested in finding out why people make complaints.'