Client care

Client, consumer or customer – no single label can describe the relationship that now exists between people and their legal services providers, Professor Stephen Mayson has argued – having previously thought that it was a distinction without a difference.

City law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner has launched Streamline, a “process improvement service” designed to cope with the legal challenges of big construction projects and complex or high-volume commercial litigation.

A law firm has won an injunction against a former client who set up websites about the firm with its name in the URL, after the High Court deemed his actions to be harassment. The injunction also covered Rick Kordowski, who ran the infamous SolicitorsFromHell.co.uk website.

Solicitors must not exploit clients’ lack of knowledge about wills for their own advantage, the SRA has warned. In a newly issued guidance note, the regulator said clients should not be led to believe that appointing a solicitor as executor was “essential or indeed the norm”.

Law firms are starting to see the opportunities in small claims after Liverpool firm Morecrofts launched a flat-fee service, allied with unbundled pieces of advice, to aid potential claimants.

QualitySolicitors has teamed up with a mediation provider to offer a fixed-fee legal solution for the type of small claims disputes that it said most “shortsighted” law firms will not touch. It said law firms were missing out on potential clients of the future.

The fears of litigants about the high cost of legal representation were borne out by their experience, government-commissioned research has found.

A barrister has failed in his judicial review of a decision of the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) that he did not deal with a complaint properly. LeO has welcomed the ruling for setting the bar high when challenging its decisions.

The Legal Ombudsman today appealed to solicitors’ bottom line to persuade them to take complaints more seriously, saying that law firms and other providers could increase their profits by up to 3% if they do.

The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) has fought off the first judicial review to reach court, brought by a former solicitor unhappy that it had ordered his bill to be slashed. The case, involving a CFA, comes as LeO issues a report outlining problems caused by ‘no win, no fee’ deals.