Monday, September 05, 2011

Prevention is better than Penman : Law Society of Scotland's ‘One Profession’, ‘One Big Rip Off’ conference is just another ‘Client Relations Killer’

law-in-scotlandSponsored by Master Policy Insurers Marsh & HSBC Bank, Law Society of Scotland’s annual conference debates way forward for lawyers. THE LAW SOCIETY OF SCOTLAND, the infamous anti-consumer regulator of complaints against crooked Scottish solicitors, holds its 'one profession' conference tomorrow, Tuesday 6 September at the ‘plush’ Glasgow Hilton. The event is sponsored by well known UK Based bank HSBC and the Law Society’s own Master Policy insurers, MARSH, the convicted of bid rigging in the US insurance broker firm linked in an independent report to the suicides of clients who dared approach the courts & Master Policy to recover funds stolen by crooked Scottish lawyers.

'Law in Scotland - One Profession', which, according to those in the know may be better described as One Profession, One Big Client Rip Off, is being held on Tuesday 6 September at the Glasgow Hilton. Attendees expected, mostly solicitors and those from the legal establishment will be those who have rather large financial interests in making the legal profession as profitable as possible, stepping on as many clients along the way as is humanly possible.

marshMarsh, the Master Policy insurers co sponsor this year’s conference, along with HSBC Bank. This year's event at the Glasgow Hilton, itself the scene of various cosy lunches between law firms, universities & the Scottish Government which appear to have influenced the awarding of multi million pound publicly funded contracts to Scots law firms, is, according to the Law Society’s website, structured around 6 streams each focusing on highly topical issues for Sole Practitioners, High Street firms, In House, Big Firms, Legal Aid practitioners and New Lawyers.

Topics for tomorrow’s conference, (with the reality check in bold for consumers), include:

1. Winning more business from existing clients and new clients (and ripping them off through a variety of well tried & tested fraudulent methods, safe in the knowledge you are going to get away with it)

2. Tenders & Procurement: What Corporates look for in a law firm (Bribes, blackmail, backhanders, hospitality, access to crooked politicians, sympathetic or crooked members of the judiciary etc)

3. Ensuring your income from Legal Aid (and ensuring the Crown Office doesn't prosecute you for stealing millions in legal aid by calling in the Legal Defence Union & favours from the Law Society)

4. Dealing with Difficult Clients (How to harass clients into withdrawing their complaint, sending someone round to threaten to burn their house down if they don't, threatening client’s children (in one case, rape), use of corrupt Police Officers to threaten arrest, having a client’s home repossessed, breaking up their family, provoking a client into suicide (becoming increasingly popular)

5. Building your Professional Network (Meeting up with crooked colleagues from all walks of life & professions including the criminal underworld who may be of use in the future)

6. Your clients want WHAT? (none of the above, just a honest job on their case rather than it being strung out for a few years just to generate huge fees and a few rip offs including thefts from wills & property.

Despite the Law Society of Scotland claiming to represent both the legal profession and the public interest in legal issues & regulation of the profession, clients are not welcome at the event, however, the two faces of what the Law Society preaches as “Client Relations” versus what “Client Relations” actually is, will most certainly be discussed.

The Law Society of Scotland will have the public believe “Client Relations” is about dealing with client complaints effectively and ensuring clients are well protected from mishaps in their relationship with their solicitor or the legal profession as a whole. As many readers & consumers now know, through the power of the alternative & online media to that of the legal profession, the reverse is true.

Fact. In reality, experiences of real clients, rather than third party script writers show ”Client Relations” is in truth, about sending a client round so many twists & turns in the legal world, ending up with a law firm that represents & defends crooked lawyers, and is acknowledged to have intervened to prevent criminal charges against corrupt solicitors in legal aid fraud cases, that the client, a married family man was provoked into suicide after well over three years of torture at the hands of the Scottish legal profession and its many tentacles.

Prior to tomorrow’s conference, some sections of the media have been helping the Scottish legal profession over the past few weeks to promote itself as an honest bunch, albeit with ‘imperfections’ which can be easily put right. The usual, now incredibly worn script is followed – a lawyer can only achieve what is possible, not always what the client wants, and of course, the lawyer should put right mistakes immediately, something which invariably does not happen.

However, the same tired arguments & ostensibly the same articles written by solicitors and some of the most senior officials from the Law Society in newspapers since the early 1990’s, have done nothing to stem rising client fraud committed by members of the legal profession over the past two decades, and noticeably have spoke nothing about the rising numbers of client deaths, home repossessions & sheer outright harassment which clients have experienced at the hands of vindictive solicitors & law firms who have in recent times started to use the courts to recover alleged fee notes for work which never took place.

So worrying is the silence on the consumer’s point of view and actual experiences of genuine clients with genuine grievances, it is as if there is a media blackout of clients woes in some sections of the press, and when someone dares to point it out, or write about the issue on their own, a national newspaper tags along with the profession to in a concerted attempt to silence criticism. Clearly, no accident, according to how one journalist told it.

Law Society of ScotlandLaw Society of Scotland “Client Relations” ensures solicitors interests come first before consumer protection. Clearly, enough time has passed where more & more experiences of clients ruined by their solicitors have hit the internet based media, showing without a doubt, clients usually receive the sharp end of the stick from their solicitors and the legal profession once a fraud has taken place, and upon receipt of an actual complaint by a client, the Law Society of Scotland will despatch the likes of the Legal Defence Union and a charity called “Law Care” to help the solicitor out of their ‘difficulties’ by any means possible, while the client is left with no support, no help, no one to speak for them, and certainly no return of what is now typically tens of thousands of pounds stolen from their funds.

While the Law Society gives lectures to its masses, and consumers about “how to deal with difficult clients”, the truth of how the Scottish legal profession perceives & deals with complaints is reflected in what one well known solicitor in an interview about how to deal with difficult clients once said.

Referring to an example where a client had considerable cause to complain to the Law Society of Scotland about the loss of hundreds of thousands of pounds, the solicitor said : “He should have a shotgun stuck in his mouth and the trigger pulled.”

This, is the attitude, and indeed the practice of the legal profession and the Law Society of Scotland when dealing with complaints against their colleagues.

Scotsman coverage of some of the stories relating to Andrew PenmanPrevention is better than Penman : Want to prevent this happening to you ? Avoid going through the doors of a lawyer’s office if you can help it. If you want to avoid what happens next, ask yourself do you really want to put yourself and your family through a living hell dealing with the legal nightmare which comes after dealing with a solicitor. Take it from someone who has already been through the system, if you want to prevent Penman happening to you, think again about how you use your money in these troubled financial times, and don't go wasting it on the fantasy services provided by many Scottish law firms, services which quickly degenerate into dishonesty and just another escapade in taking as much money from you as possible, without being able to achieve the desired result in law, where you will invariably end up as the victim.

MURDER ON THE LAW SOCIETY EXPRESS : How the Master Policy’s killer streak protects Scots solicitors :

SLCC report headerAfter the release of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission's investigation into the claims process against solicitors, harsh evidence emerged of the human cost to clients, where suicides, illness (some resulting in death), family break ups and huge financial losses are the horrific consequences sustained by members of the public who have tried to make claims against the Law Society of Scotland's 'Master Policy' insurance scheme, touted by the legal profession as protecting lawyers and clients but which the ground breaking report released by Manchester University School of Law on Monday reveals “is simply designed to allow lawyers to sleep at night.”

Page 8 - Consumer Focus Scotland refused cooperation from Law SocietySuicides, illness, family breakdown, loss of homes, loss of livelihood were all identified by interviewees as being directly associated with members of the public’s dealings with the Law Society & Master Policy. During the research team's investigation of claims against the Master Policy, team members were told of suicides which had occurred due to the way in which clients of crooked lawyers had been treated by the Law Society of Scotland and the insurers who operate the Master Policy protection scheme for solicitors against negligence claims. Quoting the report : "Several claimants said that they had been diagnosed with depression; that they had high blood pressure; and several had their marriages fail due to their claim. Some had lost a lot of money, their homes, and we were told that one party litigant had committed suicide."

Further excerpts from the Manchester University report into the Law Society's Master Policy & Guarantee Fund show the intolerable strain clients who attempt to claim against their 'crooked' solicitor have to endure : Claimants "described being intimidated, being forced to settle rather than try to run a hearing without legal support, and all felt that their claims’ outcomes were not fair. Some claimants felt that they should have received more support, and that this lack was further evidence of actors within the legal system being “against” Master Policy claimants. Judges were described as being “former solicitors”, members of the Law Society – and thus, against claimants. Some described judges and other judicial officers as being very hostile to party litigants."

One direct quote from the report, depicts a claimant, who was forced to become a party litigant : "I keep fighting cases, and they keep coming at me, and now I have become ill. But they still keep coming at me. They threw me out onto the street, I couldn’t get my medication, I’ve got nothing, I was homeless, ill, sleeping in the car. Now I am appealing. But I can’t get a solicitor. They are just shutting me down…. My health has been damaged, they kill you off. It's a proven fact. All of us have stress related problems after years and years of stress."

The full story of the University of Manchester’s report on the Master Policy and its effects on clients, can be read here : Suicides, illness, broken families and ruined clients reveal true cost of Law Society's Master Policy which 'allows solicitors to sleep at night'

Some of the ways in which clients have been targeted by the Law Society of Scotland were revealed in an earlier article, documenting how Private Investigators & corrupt Police Officers have been used to intrude into client’s lives, featured here : HERE & HERE

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like your list of topics up for discussion!


2. Tenders & Procurement: What Corporates look for in a law firm (Bribes, blackmail, backhanders, hospitality, access to crooked politicians, sympathetic or crooked members of the judiciary etc)

Hits the nail right on the head!

Anonymous said...

so a few off duty possibly bent cops who have relatives in the legal profession will be working at the Hilton tomorrow on cash in hand security duties to stop any clients getting in

haha

Anonymous said...

There's no media blackout Peter.The fact is some journalists on certain newspapers have their jobs threatened if they write about it and even if they do some of the higher ups who make more from the LSoS than the paper stop the story going ahead.

You surely know exactly who I am talking about.

Anonymous said...

This is about honest hard working people for personal profit so the lawyer can escape with his loot

Anonymous said...

So a client relations conference with any input from clients barred?

That's the Law Society of Scotland all over.

Anonymous said...

You seem to know the legal profession so well Peter - I dont think you missed out much in your discussion points.

Anonymous said...

http://www.scotsman.com/scotsman-law-and-legal-affairs-supplement/Law-and-Legal-Affairs-Prevention.6830706.jp

THERE IS an old saying in the legal business - this would be a great job if it weren't for the clients. Lawyers are good on irony, and the self-deprecation of that joke is half or all you really need to know about client relations. In a nutshell, it reflects what those of us who are client-facing know, which is that clients are humans, and whatever we do for them, we have to deal with their expectations, their personalities, their disappointments. Oh, and their interests, by the way. Law is an art more than a science.

Right.Is that anything like throwing clients from pillar to post until they end up committing suicide or raping their kids?

F*ck Client Relations if that's what its all about.

Christ I am glad I dont buy the paper any more when this drivel is up as a news item.

Anonymous said...

3. Ensuring your income from Legal Aid (and ensuring the Crown Office doesn't prosecute you for stealing millions in legal aid by calling in the Legal Defence Union & favours from the Law Society)

LOL!
THEY WONT BE HAPPY WITH THAT ONE!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for letting us know HSBC sponsors the Law Society
I'll keep my money well away from them and anyone else who gets into bed with this band of crooks

Anonymous said...

Referring to an example where a client had considerable cause to complain to the Law Society of Scotland about the loss of hundreds of thousands of pounds, the solicitor said : “He should have a shotgun stuck in his mouth and the trigger pulled.”

I know what I'd like to write about this but you wouldnt be able to publish the comment.

Suffice to say the lawyer who said this is SCUM

Anonymous said...

Clearly while there are a great many crooked lawyers they cant get away with this on their own so I would expect them to co-opt other professions & people into their schemes.This is why lawyers get away with legal aid fraud for one,another where they get away with stealing money from wills and the list goes on etc

Anonymous said...

a meeting of crooks!

Anonymous said...

As your excellent headline suggests this 'conference' is simply lawyers patting themselves on the back while finding new ways to defraud the rest of us.

Evidence enough for your readers (and myself) to stay out of a lawyer's office and use our money much more wisely.

Anonymous said...

1. Winning more business from existing clients and new clients (and ripping them off through a variety of well tried & tested fraudulent methods, safe in the knowledge you are going to get away with it)

2. Tenders & Procurement: What Corporates look for in a law firm (Bribes, blackmail, backhanders, hospitality, access to crooked politicians, sympathetic or crooked members of the judiciary etc)

3. Ensuring your income from Legal Aid (and ensuring the Crown Office doesn't prosecute you for stealing millions in legal aid by calling in the Legal Defence Union & favours from the Law Society)

4. Dealing with Difficult Clients (How to harass clients into withdrawing their complaint, sending someone round to threaten to burn their house down if they don't, threatening client’s children (in one case, rape), use of corrupt Police Officers to threaten arrest, having a client’s home repossessed, breaking up their family, provoking a client into suicide (becoming increasingly popular)

5. Building your Professional Network (Meeting up with crooked colleagues from all walks of life & professions including the criminal underworld who may be of use in the future)

6. Your clients want WHAT? (none of the above, just a honest job on their case rather than it being strung out for a few years just to generate huge fees and a few rip offs including thefts from wills & property.

DESCRIBES LAWYERS PERFECTLY

Anonymous said...

Lafferty must be having a laugh with the Scotsman - that piece is taken right out of someone's butt

Anonymous said...

I thought it was the RBS who usually sponsored the rotten stinking LSoS.
Did they finally see sense?

Anonymous said...

Haha Peter I bet they will be roasting your effigy over a spit tomorrow during one of their devil worship ceremonies.

Good stuff I love it I hope people read this and think twice before throwing their money at some scumbag lawyer in Scotland!

Anonymous said...

I've been reading the hootsmon's website and noticed an odd thing - all the legal stories have no comments allowed.Also there are several other reports about how good the legal profession is
http://www.scotsman.com/scotsman-law-and-legal-affairs-supplement/Professional-ethics-should-be-at.6826906.jp
http://www.scotsman.com/scotsman-law-and-legal-affairs-supplement/Debating-if-lawyers-really-help.6822662.jp
The one about the debate also has no comments so no debate allowed unless it's rigged by the Law Society I imagine.

Funny how all those people said this kind of thing would end under the SNP yet here we are again with the same stuff being floated off to the public as an honest lawyer etc which we all know to be bunkum.

Little wonder circulations are falling when the mass media continue to spout the party (or in this case business) line.

Anonymous said...

I see Roseanna Cunningham is the keynote speaker for tomorrow.
Borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring!

The "Ensuring your income from legal aid" seems to be an odd titled discussion.

Is this about committing fraud from SLAB or the client or both?

Anonymous said...

Prevention is better than Penman,how right you are.

To the lawyer who said a shotgun should be put in the mouth of a client - you deserve to be locked up forever.

Anonymous said...

A word to the decent and honest lawyers out there - dare one hope they might even form a silent, albeit cowed majoirty? - when are you going to do something to rectify the appaling mess that is the Law Society of Scotland?

YOU have a vote, for heavens sake use it!

Anonymous said...

As Peter says the only way to prevent falling into the lawyer trap is not to use them.Sound advice.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't worry about what some narcissistic has beens write in the papers these days - no one outside their own sphere believes what they spout hence the reason for falling sales.

Anonymous said...

What you have to understand is that The Law Society of Scotland is a corrupt institution that solely looks after its own members. The Law Society has been allowed to abuse the law over time, in its members favour, to the detriment of the public. This is criminal behaviour yet the Lord Advocate (lawyer) and Crown Office (lawyers) are sympathetic towards and openly and in plain sight allow lawyers to be above the law. I am sure everyone can think of multiple examples themselves.

However, the moral pendulum is in motion. While Lybian solicitors crawl on their hands and knees through dirty, bombed out rooms to piece together papers in order to bring to justice those who had oppressed their countrymen, not for money but for a sense of justice.

Contrast that to Scotland where Justice has become a parody of the true meaning of the word. Justice is where a man is found guilty on a foreign land, consecrated as Scottish soil for the purpose and the Scottish Judiciary chosen for a reason, rather than the 'English Judiciary' (remember the Glasgow terrorist attack was prosecuted in London!) Justice, where a case is found against a 'party litigant' for having the temerity to bring a water-tight case before the Court... and the list goes on.

Maybe David Cameron is on the right track when he talks about televising court proceedings?

Only lets televise the whole court proceedings, especially for the benefits for the all the parties involved in the process. Afterall, if there is a televised record of everything then surely everyones rights are protected?

Answers on a postcard.

Judy x

Anonymous said...

Word around town is the rent boys did a roaring business from the all lawyers attending yesterday!
I hope their wifeys knew whit their old men were up to!