The Legal Complaints Service (LCS) shares Helen Davies' desire to see high-quality client care across the legal profession (see [2007] Gazette, 29 November, 12). I believe that complaints prevention is a key part of the role of the LCS if the organisation is to be truly consumer focused. We do not wish to be complacent about our role and have therefore taken a proactive stance.


The project to investigate publishing complaints is just one of several under way that aims to deliver improved consumer experience. The LCS is engaging with the profession to improve both client care and complaints-handling, and is consulting with solicitors to find the best way of providing them with advice while complaints are still at the in-house stage. The aim is to encourage solicitors to use our telephone advice service more regularly, rather than, as Ms Davies suggests, 'canvassing its abolition'.



We are considering, subject to our planned programme of consultation, to start by publishing information about adjudicated complaints. Consequently, firms would only have a record published against them if they:

l Fail to deal with a complaint in-house under rule 2 to the satisfaction of the client;

l Fail to have LCS view the complaint as unjustified or alternatively not solve the problem by conciliation; and

l Have a complaint upheld by adjudication, which will only happen if the firm has given inadequate professional service.



Firms will have many options to resolve their complaints prior to adjudication, and unjustified complaints will not be upheld in any event.



Consumers are used to seeing a wealth of information and feedback prior to selecting service providers and it is wrong to suggest that only 'very serious cases of maladministration' should be shared - contemporary consumer culture requires transparency and consumers make judgments accordingly.



Methods of raising standards such as accreditation and audit are expensive options both for the provider and the firm, and the take-up of accreditation is often low and does not deliver the change required. Sharing information already held is by far the most effective way to make a difference.



I agree with Ms Davies that it is time to have a full and sophisticated debate. That is why we started it.



Deborah Evans, Chief Executive, Legal Complaints Service