Soaring cases of complaints against Scottish Lawyers

Buried in the Saturday edition of "The Scotsman" - which no one reads because they have more to do at the weekend, is the story that Complaints against lawyers - yes, Crooked Scottish lawyers, have soared again this year, at 30% up on the previous year ..... soaring, as they do every year ....

The true number of complaints against lawyers, however, is thought to be much higher, and this is because the "Client Relations Office" of the Law Society of Scotland - yes, otherwise known as "The Dirty Tricks Department" of the Law Society, fiddles the figures and throws out many complaints, mainly by intimidating the client to the extent that they either back off through threats or because of combined action against them by the actual crooked lawyer & Law Society staff .. or simply because they realise it is a losing battle to make a complaint against a crooked Scottish lawyer - because his colleagues will cover up for him as has always happened in the past ... true number of complaints ? it is thought that there were well over 6000 letters of complaints against lawyers last year ... so the figures we get from the Law Society at 4849 complaints ... could be as believable as the UK Unemployment statistics ! .... try ... 6000 .. or 7000 ++++ !

Philip Yelland appears in the article - the corrupt Director of the Client Relations Department, who, personally, fiddled my own case against the Law Society of Scotland by ordering my own lawyer not to accept instructions from me to call senior Law Society officials as witnesses in a legal action ... and he did that more than once ... and to other people's cases too ...

don't believe it ? well, you can read how crooked Philip Yelland, and his boss, Douglas Mill, are, by reading my blog post at : http://petercherbi.blogspot.com/2006/03/leaked-letter-shows-true-extent-of-law.html

Caroline Flanagan whines about how the profession will face hardship if fines of up to £20,000 are imposed on crooked lawyers for ripping off clients ... but, what about all the hardship, destroyed lives, destroyed businesses, destroyed families your colleagues in Scotland have caused, Caroline ? surely, your colleagues will only increase the amount they steal from clients to compensate for the increased fines ? because as the saying goes, 'once a crook, always a crook' ... and we all know that there are a heck of a lot of crooks in the Scottish legal profession ...

Read on for the article, from "The Scotsman", at :
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=427692006

Complaints against lawyers up 30%, reveals Law Society

MICHAEL HOWIE

COMPLAINTS against Scotland's lawyers soared by 30 per cent last year to nearly 5,000, The Scotsman has learned.

The Law Society of Scotland's annual report, unveiled at its closed-doors annual meeting yesterday, showed that 4,849 complaints were made against solicitors last year compared with 3,732 in 2004.

The level of complaints has more than doubled in five years, a trend described by politicians as "very worrying".

The majority of complaints were about inadequate professional service.

The Scottish Executive has unveiled plans to remove this type of complaint from the Law Society and charge a new independent body with investigating "service" grievances, effectively ending centuries of self-regulation within the legal profession.

The report also reveals that more than 1,000 complaints were dismissed.

A total of £214,393 was paid out to aggrieved clients in 452 cases. More than 60 lawyers were prosecuted before the Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal for alleged serious misconduct.

Despite the massive increase in complaints, the society achieved a new target of dealing with 75 per cent of grievances within six months for the first time.

Philip Yelland, director of the society's client relations office, said: "The original target of dealing with 90 per cent of complaints within nine months was maintained throughout last year, despite a sharp rise in number of complaints. This is a significant achievement and one of which we are rightly proud."

The society claimed the rise was due to increased public awareness of the complaints system and continuing complaints by people mis-sold endowment policies in 1980s and 1990s.

Society president Caroline Flanagan said: "There has been a trend here which has pushed up the number of complaints in recent years, and that has been complaints about alleged mis-selling of endowments. We are actually now seeing those figures drop back off.

"Also, people are much more aware they have the right to complain. The Ombudsman acknowledged that in her report and said that was a good thing. I don't think it is because solicitors are failing at a higher level."

But Margo Macdonald MSP, who is chair of the Scottish Legal Awards, described the overall rise as "very worrying".

"Perhaps the first thing the independent complaints body should do is analyse the reasons why so many people are complaining. I do not think greater public awareness of the system explains that in itself.

"This is very worrying. We have all got to trust lawyers in the same way we trust doctors. If these figures reflected diminishing trust in clients, that would be extremely concerning."

Last November the society urged the Executive to create an independent body to investigate complaints about inadequate professional service from lawyers, which make up around 80 per cent of all such grievances.

The society's recommendations came on the back of an official consultation on legal complaints handling which attracted 500 responses.

Mrs Flanagan said yesterday's annual meeting had been "positive" with lawyers echoing her concerns about aspects of the proposed shake-up in legal services.

These include plans to increase the amount of compensation firms have to pay out to clients from £5,000 to £20,000.

"A lot of people were saying this could put them out of business, or steer away from certain areas of work such as legal aid, or cases of low value."

She also hit out at plans to make firms who are the subject of a complaint pay a £300 "handling fee", regardless of whether the complaint is upheld.