6th December 2005

Solicitors unfazed by complaint body

But who do we look to for an independent example

Oh the glee with which the unctuous good greeted the decision last week by the Law Society of Scotland to accede to the creation of an independent body to handle complaints. We solicitors are to be “stripped of the right” to police ourselves. We have “bowed to public demand for change” trumpeted this very newspaper. Visions are conjured up of beaten and humiliated denizens of the suited classes cowering before the dazzling knights of consumer power. GOTCHA.

I have news for you all. Most solicitors are unfazed by this decision. We have got more cheesed off by the very system everyone seems to think we want to keep. It is bad enough having to deal politely with the kind of ignorant, self-regarding claptrap that the disgruntled former client puts about. It is even worse, though, to find the Drumsheugh beaks giving the matter credibility, and having to meet their demands, to produce files and papers and narratives and statements within impossible timescales to try to answer it.

But no more.

You won’t believe me but the reason the Society held out so long has been a genuine professional concern for the interests of the public. They held the view, obviously daft, that practising solicitors were best placed to recognise bad work when they saw it. So long as the Society itself controlled complaints there was a chance of holding in check the adversarial positioning of the parties and the polarisation which results. A conciliated or professionally brokered resolution remained possible. Not so now. . Procedure will be sacred. Lawyers will get more work. Solicitors will be briefed to present complaints. You think it will be simpler, quicker and cheaper? Wrong: it will be mystifying, it will take ages and it will bleed you white.

All the same it will be fairer, it might be said. More complaints will be upheld against lawyers because they will not be able to protect each other. Time will tell on that. I suspect that here we really have the key to the matter. Fairness has a new definition. It means upholding the complaint every time. The unjustified, vexatious, vindictive or simply silly complaint just does not exist. Get your mind right.

John Swinney, MSP, has been prominent in all this: “The dual role of the Society, in promoting the interest of solicitors and supposedly defending the public interest, was clearly unsustainable” he crowed. Anxious to find an already working model of fairness and independence in handling complaints I went, naturally, to the website of the Scottish Parliament. What do we find? Complaints against MSPs are referred initially to an Independent Standards Commissioner. So far so good. But what happens from there? The Commissioner reports to the Standards Committee. The Committee considers the report and decides whether or not to uphold the complaint and whether or not to apply any sanctions. Who comprises the Standards Committee? MSPs, 100 percent. Hey ho Mr Swinney: independence for Scotland, independent consideration of complaints against lawyers. But complaints against MSPs? Better keep that in the Club.