Client care

Compensation arrangements for consumers involved in legal transactions that go wrong are outdated and need to be improved, the Legal Services Board has said in calling on its consumer panel to undertake research and provide advice on the issue.

The biggest single reason general counsel are dropping law firms is price, according to a survey of top in-house lawyers at major global corporations. Lack of demand and quality of results are featured high up in the list.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has been “hoodwinked” into changing its rules on referrals to financial advisers and risks involving solicitors in the mis-selling of investment products, a former senior financial regulator has claimed.

A new commercial law firm in Harrogate has launched with a fixed-fee product to support clients in conducting their own litigation. In the latest bid to challenge the traditional hourly billing model, Towers Legal is also offering a fixed-fee ‘virtual’ in-house lawyer service.

The names of 772 law firms which have been the subject of a formal decision by the Legal Ombudsman were published today – but an analysis by this website shows the ombudsman was happy with the law firm’s actions in more than half of the cases made public.

The publication of complaints data will be “imperfect”, the Chief Legal Ombudsman has admitted, but it is better than publishing nothing at all and is emphatically not about naming and shaming lawyers.

Michelle Garlick, a partner in Weightmans’ professional risk and Compl-i consultancy team, offers common-sense tips on how to handle complaints from clients.

There is a “small but material rate of non-compliance” by solicitors with their complaints-handling requirements – and some bad attitudes towards complaints – confidential research by the Solictors Regulation Authority has found.

Law firms’ terms of business need to clearly provide them with adequate rights to stop work for a client who refuses to pay, solicitors have been warned following an important Court of Appeal ruling yesterday.

Lawyers must provide clearer pricing information to their clients or risk losing out to new entrants to the market, the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) has warned. LeO today issued a report on the problems issues around cost causes consumers, accounting for up to a quarter of all of its investigations.