Client care

The Supreme Court has ruled 5:2 in favour of not extending legal professional privilege to non-lawyers, even where they are giving legal advice that they are qualified to give. The court said it would make a well-established principle unclear and also that it was ultimately a matter for Parliament.

Just 8% of recent home-buyers would seek out a big brand such as the Co-op to handle their conveyancing the next time they move, a consumer survey has found as Conveyancing Association launched customer service ‘pledges’ that it says are a first for the industry.

Merger and acquisition talks are rife among law firms, although there is little evidence of many making it through to a deal, new research has suggested. According to the survey by NatWest, 62% of firms had received or made approaches in the past year.

Quality of legal advice and service still trump cost when clients choose a lawyer, although certainty about price and a firm’s use of technology are increasingly important, according to a major survey of client needs being released at today’s Legal Futures conference.

Regulators need to take urgent action to improve the way lawyers handle complaints after a “hard-hitting” new report highlighted multiple failings. However, although clients are often scared to complain, a positive experience when they do can actually make them likely to recommend the provider.

Compensation arrangements for consumers involved in legal transactions that go wrong are outdated and need to be improved, the Legal Services Board has said in calling on its consumer panel to undertake research and provide advice on the issue.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