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GAZETTE
NW
JUNE 1993
• What are the characteristics of this
service from the client's viewpoint?
• What personnel, facilities, capacity,
time, reliability, responsiveness,
comfort, systems, environment,
accuracy, cost effectiveness do you
provide to deliver that service?
• What does the client expect? What
should the client get?
• Is the client nervous, uncertain or
worried about what he wants? Does
he want reassurance, consistent
satisfaction, improvement, efficiency,
courtesy, definitive action, cost
optimisation?
• Is there a complaints procedure?
• Is there in essence a quality
response? Is there a consistent
quality response from all personnel
and are your facilities geared to it?"
Robert Pierse said that in order to
provide quality service, the service
given to clients must be a total service
which, by its features and
characteristics, was able to satisfy
fully the stated and implied needs of
clients. The system by which this was
achieved must combine an input from
personnel with structures,
responsibilities, procedures, processes
and resources.
disloyalty, since there was an over
supply of solicitors and therefore a
great deal of competition within the
profession for available business.
Í
Another factor contributing to the
drive towards quality, he said, was the
cost of quality failure, be it through
j
increased professional indemnity
j
premiums, higher contributions to the
Compensation Fund or time that had to
be spent rectifying mistakes or failure
to deal properly with clients.
Rule 15 on client care
Andrew Lockley described a number
of initiatives which the Law Society of
England and Wales had taken,
including the introduction of rule 15
on client care which obliged each firm
to have an in-house procedure for
dealing with complaints. He told
delegates that compliance with rule 15
was not, as yet, universal. While most
firms said they had an internal
complaints procedure they did not tell
their clients about it. On the other
hand, some firms had gone further
than rule 15 and had established their
own quality standards such as
returning calls within one day. The
i
Law Society actively encouraged the
client care approach.
Andrew Lockley said that seven
solicitors firms in England and Wales
had now obtained the British quality
standard BS7570. In his view, BS5750
was essentially "common sense written
down". However, it tended to be
process-orientated rather than people-
orientated and it had required
adjustments for its application to legal
services which the Law Society of
England and Wales had agreed with
the British Standards Institute. The
debate was now moving on into the
area of total quality management
(TQM) which was a philosophy of
continuous improvement and was
more orientated towards people.
Andrew Lockley said the approach of
TQM was to assess the quality of work
consistently while it was being done
rather than applying quality control
after the event which was far less
satisfactory.
Practice Management Standards
Andrew Lockley explained how the
Law Society of England and Wales
had responded to the desire of the bulk
of the profession to be given guidance
standards on practice management.
The Society had also been stirred into
this by the Legal Aid Board because
the Board was insisting on certain
quality standards being met before it
would franchise legal aid work to a
firm. It was an important principle for
the Law Society of England and Wales
Customer-driven quality
Andrew Lockley,
Director of the Legal
Practice Directorate of the Law
Society of England and Wales, said the
j move towards quality in the solicitors'
profession in England and Wales had
been customer-driven. The large
buyers of legal services such as the
Legal Aid Board, insurance companies
and local authorities were exercising
their buying muscle and were insisting
on quality standards. Furthermore,
over 20,000 firms in the UK had
acquired the British quality standard
BS5750 and they in turn wanted to do
i business with others who had acquired
I the standard, including solicitors.
There was also an element of self
interest in that some solicitors' firms
viewed it as a hedge against client
In a relaxed mood at the Annual Conference were l-r: Glenys Richardson and Norman
Richardson, Lees Lloyd Whitley, Liverpool, England; David Thomas, Lees, Lloyd
Whitley; Jane Bibby; and David Keating, Smith & Graham, Hartlepool, England.
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