The Gazette 1993

GAZETTE

I M N A GEM N JUNE 1993

do the bidding of the profession simply at the asking. It is to be expected - and, I hope, accepted in the profession - that the interests of the profession will not always coincide with what is perceived as being in the public interest and, as a profession, we must try to come to grips with this. There is little doubt that much needs to be done to enhance the public image of the profession and also the credibility of the Society in the eyes of the public. However, the profession must realise that the Society cannot be unmindful of the fact that there is evidence to suggest that not all solicitors give an adequate service to their clients (1,500 complaints a year is not a negligible total) and there is some public dissatisfaction with the remedies that, up to now, have been available to people who have been dissatisfied. Sections 8 and 9 of the Solicitors Bill, giving the Law Society new powers to deal with shoddy work and overcharging, would hardly have been necessary if everybody had been satisfied with the way in which complaints had been handled up to now. Nor is the appointment of a Legal Ombudsman the product of the mind of some unreasonable Minister who sees it as his task to put down the profession. We can, as a profession, do more to bring home to the public that we are an honourable profession. However, shouting this from the rooftops will not, in itself, be enough; the profession needs to demonstrate clearly to the public that it does care about the quality of the service that it is offering and that it is concerned with complaints about the service. (Should the Society be considering, in this context, introducing a rule similar to rule 15 in England under which it would be mandatory for every law firm to have formal complaints procedures?) Concerns of this kind have already motivated the Council recently to move to announce the appointment of Lay Observers to its Registrar's Committee. The introduction of transparency and accountability in the complaints procedures of the Society will do much, in my view, to

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past, decided that, from now on, all those who default in a serious way will be subject to the full glare of publicity. This is, undoubtedly, a painful experience for the profession. We do not necessarily want to see cases of this kind in the newspapers but we must get the message across that those who betray the trust reposed in them will be dealt with severely. We must also convince the public that we are not a little club protecting our own. The thrust and direction of our public relations policy is to get this message across but, of course, the message sometimes falls on a sceptical public. I believe we are succeeding and I believe that, in due course, and especially when we get the new powers we so badly need in the Solicitors Bill to deal more effectively with complaints, there will be a substantial improvement. The profession itself must be patient and give the new policies a chance to work. We should not see enemies laying siege from every corner. The profession has its critics, amongst politicians and in the media, and sometimes criticism is unfair and unbalanced. Recently, a former Government Minister spoke disparagingly of the profession on a major television programme in a way which was quite unbalanced. That criticism was responded to by the Society but, alas, the media in general did not pick up the response.

We are, of course, an honourable profession. The vast majority of our members are public-spirited persons who give a good service to their clients and give good value for money. However, as in every profession, a minority fail to live up to the standards expected of them. The problem with the profession is, however, that at the moment, rightly or wrongly, there is a public perception that we are self-interested and do not care sufficiently about our clients. The public relations policy of the Society is directed at demonstrating that this perception is unfounded. The Society is working actively to improve management in legal firms, to promote quality in the delivery of legal services and to bring home to the public that the profession offers protection to its clients through the Compensation Fund and redress, by having an effective an efficient complaints procedure when things go wrong. However, we must strive harder to get this message across to the public. Until we do, it is unlikely, in my view, that the public's view of the profession will improve or that the image of the Society itself will alter greatly. That is why many of the provisions of the Solicitors Bill will be a help. It was to this end that the Council of the Society, in the recent

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