Lawyers investigating their own criticised by regulator. LESS than a week after the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) announced Law Society of Scotland insider Neil Stevenson as their latest Chief Executive, the pro-lawyer regulator has released a report calling for more transparent processes in the Law Society’s handling of complaints where lawyers investigate themselves.
The report - compiled before the Law Society took back control of the ‘independent’ SLCC last week - analyses trends in how the Law Society of Scotland handle conduct complaints about solicitors from 2009 to 2014.
Conduct complaints about Scottish solicitors: Trend analysis report, draws attention to trends in:
the numbers of conduct complaints;
the timescales involved in investigations; and complaint outcomes.
It also covers the two different outcomes available to the Law Society of Scotland’s Professional Conduct Committees when they uphold a conduct complaint - Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct and potential Professional Misconduct.
The report reveals that although conduct complaint numbers and timescales are generally decreasing, on average, hybrid complaints – those which incorporate elements of both conduct and inadequate service – take 2 years to be dealt with. This increases to 3 years if a prosecution against the solicitor for Professional Misconduct is then raised at the Scottish Solicitors’ Discipline Tribunal.
Whilst the number of decisions being made by the Law Society of Scotland and the number of complaints upheld is steadily increasing, the level of compensation, fines and training orders remains low. Compensation, fines and training orders are all available as sanctions when the Law Society of Scotland Committees uphold a complaint as Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct. Although there is a tariff and written guidance relating to compensation, no guidance exists for levels of fines. Neither the compensation guidance nor the Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct decisions are made available to the public.
If the complaint is upheld by a Committee as potentially being Professional Misconduct, the Law Society of Scotland appoints a fiscal (usually a solicitor) to prosecute the solicitor named in the complaint at the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal. In at least 13 instances, the fiscal referred the complaint back to the Committee for the decision to be reconsidered. The SLCC said they question whether it is right that the Law Society of Scotland Committee subsequently revisits its decision – based on the advice of one individual, the fiscal.
In the report the SLCC recommends that the Law Society of Scotland:-
* Considers fast-tracking certain types of complaints.
* Continues to work with the SLCC to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of complaint handling, particularly in relation to hybrid complaints.
* Reviews the consistency of sanction awards.
* Revises and publishes written guidance and/or a tariff for Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct sanctions.
* Considers publishing information in relation to Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct decisions.
* Reviews the involvement of the fiscal in the determination process and remitting complaints back for secondary decisions.
The report follows a previous report on trends in service complaints.
Under the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007, the SLCC is the ‘independent’ single gateway for complaints about solicitors and other legal practitioners in Scotland, complaints about conduct are then referred to the professional bodies to investigate – leading to lawyers investigating their own colleagues – even when evidence of law breaking is uncovered.
In addition to investigating complaints about inadequate service by solicitors and firms, the SLCC – which has cost Scots clients a staggering £20 million plus since 2008 - has a role in investigating “handling complaints” – complaints about the professional bodies’ investigations – and in monitoring trends in complaints.
The SLCC has done little to curb the excessively pro-lawyer conduct of Law Society investigations and has had little effect at the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal (SSDT) – at one stage being criticised by the SSDT for not presenting enough cases for prosecution.
The trends are lawyers get off the hook every time - very easy to spot even when the SLCC mush it up over 18 pages!
ReplyDeleteperfectly timed spin to take the heat out of the Law Society takeover
ReplyDeleteWho believes anything the slcc say anyway?
ReplyDeleteThe SLCC want transparency as much as Lord No No wants a Register of Interests. Peter and the DOI team know the score just like we do. The complaints system was set up to keep people ruined and how efficient it is. We never believe the lawyer spin.
ReplyDeleteHopefully now the Law Society have taken back control of the slcc you can keep on at the judges - it is much more interesting and greater impact.
ReplyDelete"The SLCC has done little to curb the excessively pro-lawyer conduct of Law Society investigations and has had little effect at the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal (SSDT) – at one stage being criticised by the SSDT for not presenting enough cases for prosecution."
ReplyDeleteWhen you strip away all the bullshit and propaganda you see that this SLCC review is nothing other than a phoney bone of contention to make the Scottish public believe that there are rules to be complied with because the truth is that the SLCC is the Law Society of Scotland?
Where the Law Society of Scotland are charged under law to carry out an investigation, they hire an 'independent' solicitor as their Prosecuter to prosecute the crooked Scottish lawyer?
This 'independent' Prosecuter is bought and paid for by the Law Society of Scotland and is under direct instruction from the Law Society of Scotland's director of Regulation Mr Phillip Yelland, therefore he is certainly not independent and he can only do what he is told to do by the Law Society of Scotland?
On the other side of the imaginary regulation (of)fence is where the Law Society of Scotland have meddled with the facts of the case and have caused a miscarriage of justice, the case is referred back to the SLCC as a Handling Complaint?
The reason for this step is so that the SLCC can rubber stamp and give the Law Society of Scotland's criminal acts a clean bill of health?
There would be a worthwhile statistic - to find out how many times in % terms the SLCC finds in the Law Society of Scotland's favour in a Handling Complaint?
100%?
So, we know that this SLCC review is a phoney-bone-of-contention as part of their propaganda against the Scottish Public, where they are still trying to get us to believe that the SLCC is a bona fide organisation, where Peter Cherbi has exposed them as Law Society of Scotland whores, willing to do anything they are instructed to do, to allow the Law Society of Scotland to defeat the ends of justice with impunity and cheat the law of the land and the Scottish People?
Can't believe the SLCC are still trying to pretend that they are independent of the Law Society of Scotland.
ReplyDeleteThis ruse and con has to stop.
The DOI journalists have shown that the SLCC is a sham organisation and has zero support of the Scottish public.
Hardly worth bothering about really..after you have expertly taken the slcc apart so many times and rightly so.
ReplyDeleteSomeone should get the blame and be properly identified for this £20 million waste of money.
The only trend that is consistent is that the Law Society of Scotland continue to defeat the ends of justice by colluding with the SLCC in order to protect known crooked Scottish lawyers, thereby, wilfully acting in defiance of their duties under the Solicitors (Scotland) Act 1980 by failing to protect the Scottish Public from known persistent and repetitive law breaking Scottish lawyers and allowing them to continue to avoid lawful regulation and allowing them to continue their campaign of crime against the Scottish Public?
ReplyDeleteThe Law Society of Scotland are a criminal organisation and a certain Mr Vickers was outed over his part in the collusion with the Law Society of Scotland, when he was Put on Notice that serious fraud crime was committed and his written response was that he (as over arching regulator) was powerless to do anything about it?
This says it all really. The man we are told has the most power to effect positive change, reveals that he is powerless to stop blatant and deliberate crime committed by the Law Society of Scotland?
Could this be the real reason that Mr Vickers jumped ship?
The SLCC is a sham organisation!
The SLCC has no credibility whatsoever and it is only being forced to hang on by its fingertips because the Law Society of Scotland need it to survive to serve their purpose, to help to trick the Scottish Public into believing it is independent of the Law Society of Scotland, which it most certainly is not!
ReplyDeleteA complaint I made to the slcc about my solicitor has been passed back and forth to the Law Society for several years and still no one has any idea when it will be resolved so the slcc calling the Law Society out on this is disingenuous.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the increasingly worryingly trend of the Law Society of Scotland colluding with the SLCC at the Gateway Stage, so as to get rid of complaints which would expose the Law Society of Scotland of being involved in criminality, where the Law Society of Scotland staff write up a completely bogus decision to be announced by the SLCC to block the complaint from receiving justice?
ReplyDeleteHighly unlawful?
Highly prevalent?
The truth of this has to be addressed in order to punish the culprits who act as if there are no laws applicable to them and to protect the public from the Law Society of Scotland?
“There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.”
ReplyDelete― Joseph Pulitzer
“It's very, very difficult I think for us to have a transparent debate about secret programs approved by a secret court issuing secret court orders based on secret interpretations of the law.”
ReplyDelete― Tom Udall
Real transparency not the spin of the Law Society or SLCC we see here, real transparency would destroy them and they know it. Just like a Register of Interests. I expect them to lie, cheat and destroy clients, they have no power to keep them in check, only themselves. Wealth is a relational barrier. It keeps Judges from having open relationships with the public.
ReplyDeleteWho are you supposed to report crime to when the Law Society of Scotland and the SLCC are as thick as thieves and are working in partnership to butcher valid complaints in order that the crooked lawyer gets let off Scot Free?
ReplyDeleteYou cannot go to the police because the Procurator Fiscal (Scottish lawyers) and the Crown Office (Scottish lawyers) will not allow a prosecution to proceed?
Therefore, the Law Society of Scotland are allowed to break the law to suit their own agenda and to cover up their crimes and are allowed to act above the law?
Meanwhile, the victim of a crooked Scottish lawyer gets victimised again ensuring that victims of crooked Scottish lawyers have zero rights?
The SLCC is the Law Society's face meant to fool us into believing our lawyers will face the music should they ruin us. Only an idiot or someone with no choice due to the monopoly lawyers have would trust them. Think about it. Clients have no choice whether they are legally robbed or not. Self regulation means there is no law, so they are not breaking laws. They engineered the system to keep them out of jail and working. The power of the bureaucracy, a place where no one is to blame for what is being done.
ReplyDeleteMe I will steer well clear.
In the report the SLCC recommends that the Law Society of Scotland:-
ReplyDelete* Considers fast-tracking certain types of complaints.
* Continues to work with the SLCC to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of complaint handling, particularly in relation to hybrid complaints.
* Reviews the consistency of sanction awards.
* Revises and publishes written guidance and/or a tariff for Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct sanctions.
* Considers publishing information in relation to Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct decisions.
* Reviews the involvement of the fiscal in the determination process and remitting complaints back for secondary decisions.
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This means we will keep covering up corrupt lawyers and play the letter game with clients who dare complain about one of their lawyers. They spend a lot of money on reports when they have no intention of action other than doing what they were set up to do, cover the Law Society's back but package it all in SLCC livery and he presto those dumb clients will fall for it.
The umpteenth report from the SLCC with mock criticism of the Law Society.If people remain ignorant of this fact and that money not friendship drives their relationship with their lawyer then they deserve their fate.
ReplyDeleteIt's crazy that victims of crooked Scottish lawyers are victimised again by being forced to go to the Law Society of Scotland's SLCC.
ReplyDeleteTransparency!
ReplyDeleteTransparency!
Let's start with the SLCC coming clean about their own collusion with the Law Society of Scotland in unlawfully killing off valid complaints against crooked Scottish lawyers, where the Law Society of Scotland themselves would be found to be committing crime?
Until the SLCC own up to their part in breaking the law to help the Law Society of Scotland then I am sorry, everything the SLCC are proposing here is nothing other than bogus propaganda to continue to deceive the Scottish Public?
Should Trading Standards close the SLCC down for selling a lie?
ReplyDeleteThe SLCC have totally lost the plot and cannot remember what the truth is anymore.
ReplyDeleteIt is inconceivable that anything emanating from the SLCC could have even a modicum of truth about it, such is their complete symbiosis with the evil Law Society of Scotland, who conduct their business as if no laws of the land apply to them and where they regularly go out of their way to humiliate and torture the victims of crooked Scottish lawyers.
ReplyDeleteI think we all know where this report will end up given the 'new' management.......in the bin!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteHopefully now the Law Society have taken back control of the slcc you can keep on at the judges - it is much more interesting and greater impact.
1 May 2015 at 11:35
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Nice try Lorna Jack!
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteA complaint I made to the slcc about my solicitor has been passed back and forth to the Law Society for several years and still no one has any idea when it will be resolved so the slcc calling the Law Society out on this is disingenuous.
2 May 2015 at 20:01
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They laugh and slap each other on the back because this is widely known as the Scottish lawyer Regulation Tennis game?
The SLCC are a front for the Law Society of Scotland, to make at look like someone independent has arrived at these perverse decisions, when the Scottish Public know that it is a bogus organisation that was set up to change the perception of the Scottish Public that the Law Society had been brought to book over their crime spree but in actual fact it is even worse now and the Law Society of Scotland's crimes have been ramped up such is their maniacal hatred of the Scottish public?
ReplyDeleteThere is not a more corrupt two organisations in Scotland than the Law Society of Scotland and their SLCC.
The only trend that is measurable is the ever increasing torture, humiliation and pain meted out by the SLCC & their paymasters at the Law Society of Scotland by their corrupt decisions.
ReplyDeleteStill waiting after 16 months for an answer on what happens to our complaint and the slcc trying to force us into mediation because they dont want to make a proper decision.
ReplyDelete