Solos fear blast from pastProfessional Indemnity: sole practitioners raise concerns over retirement provisionsThe Law Society this week defended itself against claims of 'arrogance' from retiring sole practitioners over its handling of their professional indemnity arrangements.

Retired sole practitioner Harry Harris said last year's professional indemnity rule changes - which allowed firms to go to the open market for insurance - left many retired practitioners with little peace of mind and concerns over their retirement provisions.

The problem arises for principals whose firms were taken over by successor practices.

Unless contractual arrangements were put in place to deal with claims against the sole practitioner - and in some cases the end of the Solicitors Indemnity Fund was not contemplated at the time - successor firms may seek to recoup the deductible, or excess, on any claim which may arise against the retired principal.Sole principals retiring with no successor practice are fully covered by run-off arrangements under SIF.

Mr Harris said he, and others, were now exposed to successor firms hoping to recoup deductibles but could not protect themselves by taking out insurance because they had already retired.

He said the Law Society had been arrogant in the way it made arrangements for sole practitioners.'If a private company had done this they would have been sued or reported to the insurance ombudsman,' he added.

Mr Harris said he favoured sole practitioners contributing money to fund a judicial review as a last resort.The Law Society's head of professional indemnity Andrew Darby said the indemnity insurance committee had considered the matter and would be inviting the Law Society's Council to consider what could be done to 'ameliorate the position'.

He said any decision would have to balance the benefits to retired principals with the cost to the ongoing profession.

Sue Allen