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I had a case of negligence against a firm of solicitors for " inordinate and inexcusable delay", such were the words on the court order. However, my complaint to the Law Society elicited the response that (a) the Law Society did not handle claims of negligence, and (b) I would have to make a claim of negligence in court. I wondered what a negligence panel was for? Finally I found a solicitor willing to on my claim, he got me legal aid. Now this is serious stuff, the Law Society appointed Messrs Mills and Reeve of Norwich to defend the errant solicitor. This strikes me as being a conflict of interest in extremis. After more years of play I was forced to carry on my case as a LIP. Having trawled through the bundle of documents, now a staggering 4 lever arch files full, I found 32 documents referred to in other documents missing from the bundle. I wrote to M&R requesting they send me the documents I listed. They refused saying they did not have those documents. I got a court order to inspect their bundle. Visiting their offices, we were ushered into a very small room. When I asked about copying the documents if I found them, they handed me a pack of yellow post-it notes to stick on any documents we wanted copying. After nearly 4 hours we had found the documents missing from our bundle. M&R refused to copy the papers saying they would send them to us. 2 weeks passed, so a letter was sent, eventually 7 of the 32 documents arrived. Sending them a list brought out another 4 documents and a letter to say they did not have any of the others. Again we applied to court for them to fully disclose the other 11 missing documents. At the hearing their solicitor maintained they did not have the 11 documents, of which we had recorded sender and recipient, date, subject matter etc. The judge accepted their argument saying that he had to believe solicitors, and what did I want him to do? I said that I would settle for an affidavit from them stating that they did not have the documents that I wanted. The affidavit was compiled by the solicitors I was suing and not by Mills & Reeve. Following my application to amend our pleadings, M&R filed an amended defence in which they made false statement and placed forged documents in support. My further application to strike out the defence for dishonesty in pleadings was met with an accusation that I was making very serious allegations against a well respected firm of solicitors, the judge dismissed my application and struck out my action. The only satisfaction I got was that my publications distributed in the local area caused the firm to go out of business. As one judge said, 'the consequences of being a solicitor is that one may have disgruntled clients' or words to that effect. Perhaps the corollory to this might be, 'the consequences of being a LIP is that of facing dishonest solicitors.