Law Society

My experience with the Law Societies customer complaints department through its various name
changes, has been an awful experience, and I have learnt many lessons in dealing with them.

The initial impressions were not in fact bad at all, and they appeared to be very helpful. As the
solicitors link outlines, I had received appalling service from a firm whom I had appointed to
represent me at an Employment Tribunal, not only that, but the bill had escalated out of all
proportion from the initial estimates given. I had complained about the poor service in writing
during the tribunal “preparation”, but on receiving the final bill, I had sent a much stronger letter
back to the firm detailing my feelings with regards to their poor service and grossly inflated bill
compared to the written estimate.

You will be assigned an investigator who supposedly investigates your complaints, and in my case,
the initial contacts were friendly, but in hindsight, not informative.

It was suggested by the investigator, as there may be grounds for loss caused by negligence, I
should take proceedings against the solicitor. This seemed a good idea, but in point of fact it
simply put more money in the hands of yet another solicitor, as I discovered, there was no way one
solicitor will actively act against another, it was yet another disgrace. During discussions with the
Manager of the legal claims department at a large insurance company, he informed me cases
against solicitors had spiralled in recent years, and when I asked him how many had been won, he
said none, which speaks for itself!

I had been assured by the Law Society that evidence uncovered by the second firm could be used
against the first firm, and as the evidence was overwhelming, at least the second firm had made
some pretty clear derogatory statements in writing, and it was very clear the first firm had been
negligent, but the second firm had done a very half hearted attempts to show it had actually
caused a loss, so I went back to the law society at least feeling I could prove my case for poor
service against the first firm.

I went back to the law society, the case having been shelved whilst the case for loss by negligence
was being investigated, and the case was reopened, but with a different investigator.

A quick précis of the events are as follows: =

The investigator supposedly investigates the complaints, taking about 6 months, and then
attempts to arbitrate. He rang me, and illustrated he was in fact clueless about the actual case, and
made generic statements such as “you wrote him letters, and he replied, so really he
communicated with you OK”. This was absolute rubbish. The investigator claimed he had my final
invoice, which I had paid in full so as to get the file, and he made claims that it said things that
were simply not there, (I was holding the original in my hands), and it was not difficult to see what
he was trying to do. This meant that either the investigator was lying, (which in fact was the case),
or he had a doctored copy of the invoice.

The final straw was when I reminded him of the evidence he held from the second firm of solicitors
basically showing how negligent the first firm had been, but the investigator responded saying
“just because he was negligent, it does not mean his service was poor”. Thus ended his pathetic
attempts at arbitration.

Following on from this initial attempt to arbitrate, I made a formal complaint to the Law Society,
and asking for a change of investigator. He had in fact been the 5th investigator I had been
assigned during the full course of the events, the others apparently left or moved on.

My formal complaints were totally ignored, so I contacted the QA department at the law society.
After the QA department got involved, I was eventually offered Ł400 compensation. This was to
offset what was accepted as an appalling level of communication and poor service I had suffered
at the hands of the investigator, including not responding to letters, and not keeping me informed.

I took the Ł400 on the strict understanding that I would now receive responses to the outstanding
letters, and that things would be better. My request for a change of investigator was refused.

After about a year from the reopening of the case, 6 months after the attempt to arbitrate, It
became obvious I was still not going to get responses to my letters, and things had not improved,
so I formally asked for the case to be frozen whilst my file and that of the investigator were
synchronized, and I could be assured he had a full list of my complaints. This request was
accepted as a reasonable request by the QA department, but it did not happen, and an
unbelievably biased document was sent to the solicitor which supposedly outlined my complaints.

The letter sent to the solicitor by the investigator, clearly showed the investigator was simply
building a defense for the solicitor, missing out the vast bulk of my complaints, and rephrasing the
few he had actually bothered to note so as to make them sound ridiculous. This basically is the
second stage following the attempts to “arbitrate”, and in my case, simply confirmed the extent
the law Society is prepared to go to defend its members.

As is the right of the complainant, I wrote a response to the letter supposedly outlining my
complaints, listing the 17 that had been omitted, and correcting the huge errors of fact that had
been evident in the letter that had been sent to the solicitor.

At this point I wrote to the management of the investigator, including the QA department, advising
them that the conditions under which I had accepted the Ł400 compensation for poor service from
the Law Society had been violated, and as far as I was concerned, the initial formal complaint
regarding their services was still outstanding. I then went on to list further complaints, including
the ongoing appalling level of communications with the investigator.

Over the following months, I received a monthly letter saying I would receive a full and substantive
response to my complaints, but these petered out in spite of my reminders, and I never did receive
the formal response to my complaints.

After another three months or so, I received the final report from the investigator. This report was
far worse than I could have ever expected even after seeing his letter supposedly listing my
complaints that had been sent to the solicitor. Out of 21 complaints made, 17 were dismissed as
“professional judgment” or “strategy”, and 1 of them “lack of evidence”.

I had sent a full list of every document in the file, an index to the evidence, and details including
page and paragraph where the evidence was. To see a complaint dismissed for lack of evidence,
and to see blatant gross inadequacies dismissed as strategy or professional judgment, was to me
appalling. It actually provided an abundance of clear evidence as to the lengths the Law Society
will go to defend its members.

With this final document is attached the supposed evidence to support both sides of the argument.
The solicitor had been asked to send evidence to counter my claims, but in his gross arrogance,
he had simply sent a statement saying how could he possibly be expected to remember a client
from three years ago, when he has had thousands since, but then went on to recall “with crystal
clarity” events. He admitted he had not looked at the file as he said the time it would take would
not do justice to his partners.

This should have meant, as he had not offered any evidence as he had been requested to do by
the Law Society, that my evidence would have prevailed, and the case proved, but instead, the
investigator used the statements by the solicitor as though it was evidence. The investigator
openly and provably lied in a number of places, including some which I viewed very seriously as
they were not only totally without foundation, but completely distorted the events out of all
proportion and clearly designed to discredit my case.

The complainant is invited to comment on this final report, your comments being sent with the final
report to the adjudicator. I wrote a full response, some 32 pages, going through all 17 complaints
that had been dismissed, and the 4 that had been carried forward, once again noting evidence
omitted, and listing the lies that had been told, referencing the evidence where necessary. In my
heart I knew this was a total waste of time and considerable effort, but at this stage I wanted it to
be clear I had given every opportunity to the law society to be aware of the truth.

Your comments on the final report, with the comments of the solicitor, goes for adjudication. As
the reasons given for dismissing the 17 complaints were ludicrous, and the lies blatant, I also
wrote to my MP, asking for his help. (At the end of all this, an investigation by the QA department
showed my submissions and evidence was never given to the adjudicator, and I was awarded a
further Ł500 compensation, but the case remained closed!)

After just a few months, the results of the adjudication were sent to me. He had found three of the
four complaints carried forward were in fact, inadequacies, including failure to put a valuation on
the case negating my ability to arbitrate, (valued at Ł232,000), failure to provide proper costs
information, agreeing that the written worse case scenario of Ł6000 had been very much exceeded,
and failure to apply for a remuneration certificate as I had correctly requested. He upheld the
dismissing of the 17 complaints the investigator had deemed strategy or professional judgment
without any referral at all to my input.

One of my complaints had been that the solicitor had used documents from my file, and the file of
other clients, as scrap paper. This meant that in my file which I had been given on full payment of
the invoice, I had found numerous documents from other peoples files containing highly personal
information. The adjudicator stated this did not prove that my documents had been put into other
peoples files, and therefore did not prove loss of confidentiality. Yet another glaring example as to
the lengths the law society goes in protecting its members.

I was awarded a total of Ł400 compensation! And the solicitor was given a three year extension to
the time allowed to apply for a remuneration certificate! a travesty.

I was disgusted, and appealed against the decision, but as I discovered, my evidence and
submissions all bound in a folder went missing, then apparantly found and given to the appeal
panel, when in fact they never saw it. As mentioned earlier, I was given a further Ł500 to
compensate for the failures, but the case was closed, even though the awards were for failing to
investigate properly!

I can say now what in fact I was aware of since the phone call from the investigator when he
attempted to arbitrate.

Evidence means nothing if it supports your complaints

The investigator can and will lie to defend the solicitor, this clearly condoned by management

The whole function of the Law Society is to defend and protect the solicitors

If in the end your are as tenacious and persistent, you may be offered as much as Ł400 to offset
losses that in my case exceeded a quarter of a million pound.

Information gleaned by the another firm of solicitors is only admissible if it supports the defending
solicitor. If it supports your case it becomes inadmissible!

The whole process is designed to give an illusion of being able to input, where as in reality your
input is filtered and modified to a frustratingly high degree, and makes for a soul destroying
methodology, clearly honed from years of defending solicitors. It has to be stopped!

The blatancy of the lies and deceit can only stem from the feeling of invulnerability enjoyed by the
Law Society, justified by years of easily “getting away with it”.

The law society have repeatedly told me that if I am not happy with the outcome, I can go to the
legal ombudsman. This route will simply add to the frustration, as they have informed me there can
only be one of three possible outcomes.

1) They find my case was properly investigated and the file is closed.

2) They find the case was poorly investigated and I will be given a small award of usually a few
hundred ponds, and the file is closed.

3) They find the case was badly investigated, a small award of on average Ł400 is paid, and they
send you back to the Law Society.

None of the above are satisfactory to me, which is why I have involved my MP. To date I have had
a responses from Sir Stephen Lander, who has now left office, (see his final report on the Law
Societies web site, interesting reading, he clearly had lots of problems!). And I have also had a
response, via my MP, from the under secretary of state, not very positive. Letters are still being
exchanged at this point.

I will fight on and keep the site posted, as I consider the appalling lack of impartiality, the lies and
deceit, denied me my human rights to a fair assessment.

Update 26th February. I have just received the decision of the appeal panel, and surprise surprise,
they uphold the findings of the adjudicator. Their findings consist of a single page, saying most of
my input for the appeal was based on the professional behavior of the solicitor, (rubbish), which
they will not investigate. They say there may be grounds for negligence, but I would need a
solicitor to pursue that, as they do not investigate negligence!
Following an equally bland decision by the Ombudsman, the ombudsman directed the Law Society
to respond to one of my letters which asked for the case to be reopened following a document
coming to light. This document, which was in fact obtained at the direction of the appeal commitee
when they wrongly thought would support a key issue in the solicitors favour, turned out to do the
oposite, and in fact proved he had lied.
The Law Society ignored the direction, which was not enforced by the useless Ombudsman. The
case was then supposedly investigated by the QA department, and I was awarded a further Ł500 to
compensate for the failures of the Law Society, but they refused to reopen the case, or comment
on how the failures had affected the outcome of the case.
A totally corrupt and evil process designed to frustrate and destroy people, which, from the
feedback from this site, it surely has.