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GAZETTE
SEPTEMBER 1985
Experience of dealing with Solicitors
amongst the General Public — 1985
T
HE SOCIETY commissioned Irish Marketing Sur-
veys to conduct a survey of the experience of the
public in dealing with solicitors and the following is a
summary of the report presented to the Society.
The survey comprised personal, face-to-face inter-
views with a fully representative national sample of
1,399 adults aged 16 or older. Interviews were carried
out nationwide during February 1985. The results of
this survey show that one in three (34%) of the adult
population claim to have had a personal or business
dealings with solicitors during the previous five years.
Comparable information was collected concerning
certain other professional advisors and the survey
showed that experience of dealings with solicitors was
significantly higher than for dealings with insurance
brokers (23% of adults), accountants (12%) or auct-
ioneers (10%).
The incidence of dealing with solicitors was well
above the average amongst people who live in a rural
area and well below it amongst Dubliners. Not sur-
prisingly, more of the well-to-do middle class than
working class people claimed to have used solicitors
during the previous five years. In terms of the different
age groups, it was only amongst those aged 16 to 24 that
the proportion who had used the service of a solicitor
was substantially below the national average. Only 29%
of women, but 40% of men had dealt with solicitors
during the five years period.
It should be said of these that, in a general way, the
same bias towards more widespread use amongst the
rural population, the middle class and men was also
found in the extent to which people had used the profes-
sional services of insurance brokers, accountants or
auctioneers.
Those who had dealings with solicitors during the
past five years were asked for what purpose they had
gone to a solicitor, either personally or in connection
with business or anything else. Just over 40% of them
said they had been with solicitors in connection with
property transactions of one kind or another. This was
by far the most common reason given for going to a
solicitor. The next most widespread circumstances
(mentioned by 20%) were for claims or damages in con-
nection with accidents or injuries, including traffic
accidents. 15% of adults said they had used a solicitor
regarding company or business matters and almost the
same proportion had consulted a solicitor or, at least
had dealt with them, over wills, probate or the admin-
istration of estates. As many as 18% said that during the
past five years they had dealt with them in connection
with other miscellaneous family matters.
The survey results suggest that only a tiny minority of
the public have been directly concerned with solicitors
regarding tax advice, matrimonial disputes, debt col-
lection services or criminal law matters, although in the
last case one would expect some degree of underclaiming.
Detailed analysis of the survey results confirmed that
those who had gone to solicitors about company or
business matters were predominantly middle class,
urban and men. Three quarters of those who dealt with
solicitors with regard to wills, probate and so forth were
themselves aged fifty or older. A particularly interesting
finding was the relative importance of claims or damages
in connection with injuries or accidents in the use of
solicitors' services by working class people. Only one in
five of those who had dealt with solicitors in the past
five years were unskilled working class, but they accounted
for more than a third of those who had gone to a solicitor
in connection with claims arising out of traffic or
industrial accidents or injuries.
Lastly, those interviewed who had dealt with solicitors
during the past five years were asked how satisfied they
had been with the service they had received on the last
occasion they had seen a solicitor. They were asked to
rate their degree of satisfaction on this five point scale
with the results shown in the table:
Entirely Satisfied
41%
Mainly Satisfied
27%
Fairly Satisfied
18%
Mainly Dissatisfied
6%
Entirely Dissatisfied
8%
On the face of it, this is quite an encouraging result in
that only 14% were actively dissatisfied with the service
which they have received. On the other hand, it is also a
fact that less than half of those interviewed were able to
describe themselves as
entirely
satisfied.
Naturally, there were differences in the extent of sat-
isfaction expressed by different sections of the popu-
lation. Men tended to be slightly less favourable than
women; 35% of men expressed themselves
entirely
satis-
fied, compared with half the women who had used
solicitors. Working class users and those in the farming
community tended to be slightly less satisfied than the
middle class.
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