Council Member's Report to AGM by Michael Morris Franks
Council Members Report February 20067 to February 2008 by Michael Morris Franks
This year has seen the second year of operation of the reorganised tripartite Law Society. As a result of the Clementi Report, the Law Society set up two separate subsidiary bodies to look after regulation and complaints handling.
The two new bodies have tried to establish their independence from the representational Law Society and sought to have their own separate identities by choosing their names and their own branding.
It no doubt came as a shock to many solicitors to see their Practising Certificates issued by the Solicitors Regulation Authority on paper bearing its logo rather than the Law Society on paper printed with the Law Society’s impressive Coat of Arms!
On the whole the spilt is working well as it has meant that the Law Society has been freed to represent the Profession and although there are tensions between the three bodies with issues arising like the
Evan though complaints handling has been delegated to the Legal Complaints Service, it the Law Society that remains responsible for complaints handling and last year the Law Society was fined £220,000 by the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner for failures in Complaints Handling. This year no fines were imposed. However at the end of the day the remedy to this problem does remain with the individual firms of Solicitors and their own complaints handling procedures because if a firm of solicitors is able to resolve a complaint before the client goes to the Legal Complaints Service it does save everyone time, money and most of all grief.
The West London Law Society has had meetings on Complaints Handling and we must realise that to resolve complaints effectively is an important part of professional life in the modern world. We are all dependent on our clients and it is vital to keep them happy.
The Legal Services Bill is now an Act and the Government has now started to recruit the Chairman of the Legal Services Board who will be the over arching Regulator of the various bodies that regulated the provision of legal services.
It is extremely difficult to predict how matters will develop. There will be a number of regulators for legal service providers and in theory it will be possible to choose your regulator.
This may have the effect of driving down the cost of regulation and possibly reducing regulation. The
We have also seen this year major battles between the Law Society and the Legal Service Commission which culminate in the Law Society’s victory in the Court of Appeal in the case over the over the Unified Contract. We are still working out the ramifications of this decision and it is worth checking the Law Society’s web site to ascertain the latest position.
I am very pleased that the Law Society had a successful outcome in the Court of Appeal but I am sadden that it has been necessary for the Law Society to expend so much time and money to try and ensure that the poorest and weakest sections of Society are properly represented and not cast down because they is no one to fight their cases for them.
This year I have continued to update the West London Law Society Web Site at www.westlondonls.org.uk. I have also sent out a monthly electronic newsletter informing people about the West London Law society’s activities. I hope it has been useful.
I would just like to thank this year’s President Julian Young for all the hard work he has put in this year with the rest of the Committee for producing this year’s excellent programme of events.
If there are any items relating to the Law Society please do not hesitate to contact me at meetings of the Society, write to me at my firm William Sturges & Co, Burwood House,
Michael Morris Franks
