Insurance monopoly over Scots professions & public services prevents public's access to justice

Why is it so difficult to sue a lawyer in Scotland many people ask ?

Well it is difficult to sue a lawyer because all lawyers are insured by the same insurance cartel – Marsh UK.

So if you can actually get a lawyer to take on your case against a lawyer who has say ... lost you a court case you had a good chance of winning .. or failed to give you good legal service which led to a substantial financial loss, even perhaps, the loss of your home ... the lawyer you hire to sue the lawyer who caused you the loss, will of course be insured by the same insurance cartel as the crooked lawyer.

Now, the fact that all lawyers are insured by the same insurance cartel might be argued by some as having nothing to do with the difficulty of getting a lawyer to sue a lawyer ... but we of course know different from the reality of things.

Actually, just say, your lawyer gives you poor legal service which leads to a substantial financial loss, and you hire another lawyer to sue them for negligence, which would entail obtaining the services of an Advocate, obtaining QC's opinion there was negligence present in your former legal agent's poor service to you, and eventually making it to the Court of Session .. you will find that your new lawyer, your Advocate, and the crooked lawyer who caused you the loss in the first place, will all benefit financially if your damages claim fails, or suffers a severe reduction in the settlement, if one is even agreed to.

In most cases involving client legal action against 'crooked' or negligent lawyers, your own legal agents and the lawyer who was negligent in handling your legal affairs, all receive financial bonuses if your claim for damages is either reduced, or thrown out.

On top of that, even your legal agents have a vested interest in your claim either being reduced or failing completely, because your success will increase their own annual payments into the insurance cartel which will be forced to pay out to you if you succeed. Good business, isn't it .. but not for you ... and of course, you are told nothing about this.

Whether you succeed or fail in your court action against a lawyer, you will then find your access to legal services blocked by the Law Society of Scotland, as you are put on a 'legal services blacklist' maintained by the legal profession naming people who have either complained against, or have taken legal action against lawyers.

Indeed, the Law Society of Scotland itself, has intervened many times directly in legal action against its own members, ensuring such cases fail at every turn. That interference from the profession's governing body has come from it's highest levels in many cases, where Chief Executives, past & present, have intervened to save crooked lawyers and the Law Society's insurance policy otherwise known as the Master Insurance Policy, from payout's to ruined clients.

Here are just a few examples of the Law Society of Scotland intervening in court actions against lawyers - to save their beloved, if corrupt, insurance cartel from paying out & admitting negligence ...

Douglas Mill steps into my own case against crooked lawyer Andrew Penman & the Law Society of Scotland’s complaint fiddling …

Former Law Society boss Kenneth Pritchard intervenes to halt a client’s legal representation in a case against crooked lawyers …

Douglas Mill again intervenes in client claims & complaints against solicitors, tells a few lies about it at Parliament too …

Insidious isn't it ... the legal profession in Scotland have been doing this for years - making sure that anyone who tries to sue a lawyer gets nowhere ... and anyone who dares complain against a lawyer gets no access to justice after that .. and politicians, from all parties who have been aware of this for years, have sat back and generally done nothing.

Why have politicians done nothing ? Well, its usually because the Law Society of Scotland will 'call them in' for questioning, or 'a good talking to' as some politicians who helped me over the years had to face ... and with the occasional threat banded about by the Law Society to those who may dare help someone denied access to justice, even the politicians slide into anonymity - happily it seems in some instances ...

The problem is, as you can see in all of this, there is an insurance cartel controlling the situation, backed up by the legal profession's governing body itself - who claim not to intervene in cases of complaint or financial claims against solicitors .. but they do, and one such incident was famously exposed by our very own Cabinet Secretary for Finance, John Swinney, where the outgoing Law Society Chief Executive Douglas Mill just sat before the Justice 2 Committee and bizzarely lied through his teeth, attempting to deny the obvious content of his own memos, revealing a catalogue of intervention & interference in claims & complaints against solicitors in Scotland.

Law Society Chief Douglas Mill tells a few lies to John Swinney …

This problem however, is not limited to the legal profession.

Want to sue a Hospital or medial professional for negligence ? You will find the very same insurance cartel insure those same medical professionals you are trying to sue .. so your lawyers (if you can get someone to take on the case) will be insured by the same insurers who insure the medical professionals.

Want to sue an accountant or financial professional or financial institution ? You will find the very same insurance cartel insure those same accountants & financial professionals or institutions you are trying to sue .. so your lawyers (if you can get someone to take on the case) will be insured by the same insurers who insure accountants, financial professionals & financial institutions ...

Have a dispute with a local Government department, or even a department of the Scottish Government which has caused you financial loss through negligence, or breached your human rights or caused you a reason to sue them ? You will find the very same insurance cartel again, insure many of those workers and departments of local & national Government.

Have a dispute over a miscarriage of justice where the Crown Office failed to disclose material to your defence agents which would have seen you go free from court instead of being falsely convicted ? Well ... parts of the Crown Office, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Government Legal Service for Scotland (GLSS) are all dependent in some way on the same insurance cartel run by Marsh UK so .. a bit difficult to change a miscarriage of justice then …

Even a vet ? ... Taken your dog to the local vets to get a jag and came back with half a dog ? Well .. the odds are your vet is insured by the same insurance cartel for professional indemnity ... so if you want to recover the rest of your dog .. yes, its probably Marsh UK or one of the same insurance companies who will decide what happens to the other bits of your dog ...

Before you ask .. yes, many departments of the Scottish Government are still insured by Marsh UK, the same insurers of the Law Society of Scotland and many other professionals ... and you can find more about that in article I wrote about that earlier, where funnily enough, John Swinney, before he became Cabinet Secretary for Finance, asked questions on the previous Scottish Executive's dealings with Marsh UK.

My earlier report on the links between Marsh UK and the Scottish Executive, which have been sadly continued to this day : Corrupt Insurers of the Scottish legal profession linked to Scottish Executive

A very interesting monopoly don't you think ? Where one big insurance cartel, represented by among others, Marsh UK, control most of the professional indemnity insurance cover throughout public services, and the most popular or most required services from the private sector - in effect control the public's access to legal services & access to justice when the actions of those concerned may merit legal action from a member of the public.

Why haven't the OFT investigated this monopoly ?

Well, vested interests perhaps don't want this monopoly interested, particularly since departments of the OFT may just also be insured by a Marsh brokered deal too !

So ... trying to sue a lawyer or some other professional is next to impossible when dealing with one big insurance monopoly that even ex lawyers still pay into at a subsistence level ... to keep access to some of those nice fringe benefits of the likes of the Master Insurance Policy which they don't readily declare to the public if say for instance, they happen to be an ex lawyer politician ...

A solution to this ? Easy ....

Well, opening up the legal services market as well as opening up the indemnity insurance coverage market for the legal profession would just about do it .. but strong independent regulation of the legal profession would have to follow, and strict rules implemented on how solicitors deal with cases against other solicitors & legal representatives, such as negligence or other damages actions .. no more of the Marsh/Law Society claims fixing policies of the likes of Douglas Mill ... and believe me, we are talking about claims fixing here – where either the public have been prevented from getting access to legal services or their actual litigation has been purposely crippled against professionals insured by the same insurance cartels, involving the likes of Marsh UK.

Since the Cabinet Secretary for Finance John Swinney knows all about the woes of dealing with insurance cartels such as Marsh UK .. and since the Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has paid quite a bit of money into that very same insurance cartel via his required subscriptions as a member of the Law Society of Scotland .. there should be no difficulty in the Government realising the extent of their mistake in allowing this to continue in Scotland ...