OWNED POLL: Law Society ‘scripted’ survey criticised by Scottish Legal Complaints Commission - new data reveals few clients of dodgy lawyers ask legal regulators for help

Law Society poll did not reveal all – SLCC. THE FINDINGS of a Law Society of Scotland survey claiming hard-to-verify client-solicitor satisfaction rates have come in for criticism by the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) – the ‘independent’ regulator of solicitors & legal services in Scotland.

The Law Society poll – published in early January 2015 - claimed Scottish solicitors were highly regarded by the public.

However, the SLCC have now challenged the poll’s findings, claiming high levels of legal service in Scotland are “not a universal experience”. The ‘independent’ SLCC also cited higher compensation awards against rogue solicitors and ‘increasing redress’ provided by the SLCC to wronged clients.

And, in another swipe at the Law Society’s poll dodging, the SLCC has now revealed that only a third of clients polled who were dissatisfied with their solicitor did anything about it, and not one client involved in the poll knew they could refer their complaint to the SLCC.

However, carefully prepared statements avoided any explanation on why the SLCC’s involvement in the poll was kept secret until a media investigation published documents revealing the SLCC's role.

A spokesperson for the SLCC said: “Towards the end of last year, the Law Society of Scotland released the results of a poll of the public’s perceptions of the legal profession. This indicated that, overall, people expressed a high level of satisfaction with solicitors. While we agree that the vast majority of solicitors provide a high level of service, this is unfortunately not a universal experience. As our figures show, we are increasingly providing redress for those clients who receive a poor service from their solicitors – a picture also supported by the record level of compensation awards and refunds of legal fees we highlighted in our last Annual Report.”

The SLCC went on to explain it’s previously secret involvement in the poll, revealing it asked searching questions on how clients react to the provision of poor legal services.

“We were given the opportunity to include questions in the Law Society’s poll. We asked two related questions aimed to assess public awareness of the role of the SLCC. In particular, we wanted to know whether clients who were dissatisfied with the service they had received from their solicitor knew they could bring their concerns to us.

The answers to these questions were revealing. Of those who were dissatisfied with their solicitor: only a third did anything about it; and none knew they could refer their complaint to the SLCC.

Solicitors throughout Scotland have a duty to make their clients aware of the SLCC and how to make a complaint to us. We continue to see evidence that this is not happening – less than 5% of those who complain to us say that they found out about us from their solicitor. We are concerned that, as a result, the voices of many dissatisfied clients are just not being heard. As a priority, we are currently working with the Law Society to ensure that all solicitors provide clear and consistent sign-posting to our service.

Clearly there is also more work that we, as an organisation, need to do to increase public awareness of the SLCC. Our Consumer Panel, newly-established this year, will be looking at how we can make sure that, on the occasions where things do go wrong and fail to be resolved, the public knows to bring those concerns to us.  Our half year results show that when this does happen - we can help put things right.”

Complaints slightly down – SLCC statistics for first half of 2014/15. Alongside the SLCC’s attempt to clear the air on their involvement in what some legal insiders have referred to as a “vanity survey”, the SLCC released complaints statistics for the first half of the operational year, showing a slight drop in complaints.

The SLCC said: “The headline figures for the first half of the SLCC’s operational year show that, overall, the number of complaints we receive is declining, reflecting a continuing trend which we have highlighted in previous years.

More importantly, however, we note the proportion of those complaints which are either accepted as eligible complaints or resolved by us during our eligibility process. They represent almost 60% of all received complaints (up from just over 40% in the corresponding period in 2013).

It’s also clear from the figures that the number of accepted complaints which are then either resolved or upheld in favour of the complainer has also increased – 115 complaints compared to 97 in 2013.”

Responding to the SLCC’s criticisms, the Law Society’s Chief Executive – Lorna Jack – said: “In the vast majority of cases, solicitors’ clients are happy with the advice and the level of service they receive. However we know that things do go wrong from time to time and it is important that people have proper recourse to address any failings through a strong legal complaints system.”

“Dealing with complaints is and will always be difficult for everyone involved. What we want to ensure is that the process in place is robust and fair to both complainer and solicitor, and that we reach the right outcome.We will work with the SLCC to ensure that the legal complaints system in Scotland continues to improve.”

The Law Society did not comment on why the involvement of the SLCC was withheld from statements released by the Law Society along with articles written for newspapers during January by the Law Society’s own President – Alistair Morris.

The research carried out by IPSOS MORI for the Law Society of Scotland claimed that of clients who had used a solicitor in the past five years - more than 90% “of respondents” said their own lawyer was either very trustworthy (70%) or fairly trustworthy (27%), with 87% describing solicitors overall as very or fairly trustworthy.

However, no detailed material has been made available which could verify the claims, or identify which solicitors or law firms were involved. It has also emerged some solicitors and law firms were provided with scripted responses by the Law Society to answer questions from the pollsters.

Legal insiders also point out the SLCC’s admission of involvement in the ‘rigged’ poll only came about after the publication of heavily redacted communications between the SLCC & Law Society which revealed both regulators discussed how to frame questions for the survey. The now published documents also revealed the Law Society demanded all material handed to the SLCC regarding the poll was not to be released to the public or media.

LAW POLL FIDDLE: Law Society of Scotland survey on client satisfaction used scripted replies, question rigging & involvement of ‘independent’ legal regulator SLCC was kept secret

Law Society poll details to remain secret says regulator. A SURVEY conducted by the Law Society of Scotland claiming Scottish solicitors are highly regarded by the public was so dishonest, the involvement of the ‘independent’ Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) and discussions about the poll and question rigging had to be censored out of documents released under Freedom of Information legislation.

AND, it emerged from an investigation into the poll the Law Society of Scotland demanded that all key documentation shared with the SLCC was provided to them on a confidential basis and on condition the material was safe from searching Freedom of Information enquiries by the media.

The research carried out by Ipsos MORI for the Law Society of Scotland claimed that of clients who had used a solicitor in the past five years - more than 90% “of respondents” said their own lawyer was either very trustworthy (70%) or fairly trustworthy (27%), with 87% describing solicitors overall as very or fairly trustworthy.

The survey went onto claim high numbers of clients felt their solicitor was an expert in their area of law and had provided good service enough to recommend to others. However, no independent material has been made available which could verify the claims, or identify which solicitors or law firms were involved.

Today, in documents released by the SLCC - blacked out to conceal discussions with the Law Society on how to ‘frame’ questions for the Ipsos-Mori survey, a murky trail of data manipulation emerges between the ‘independent’ SLCC & the Law Society – involved in a concerted attempt to manipulate the public into believing client-solicitor satisfaction rates are higher than the eventual publicity about the poll – published in late December 2014 & January 2015.

The documents released by the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission reveal a series of polls, carried out by the Law Society in order to boost its image and that of the legal profession.

In one email between the SLCC and Law Society representatives on the ‘poll’, a Law Society representative tells his SLCC colleague: At the recent LSS/SLCC strategy day, I agreed to provide you with our polling plans so we could discuss possible areas for some joint work. There are three pieces of polling work which we plan to carry out before the end of the calendar year, all carried out by Ipsos MORI.

• Public polling on attitudes towards solicitors (around 1,000 people) - polling carried out in September with results due in October.

• Political monitor (around 100 Members of the Scottish Parliament) - polling carried out Sep-Nov with results due in early December.

• Members polling (around 550 members) - polling carried out in December with results due by calendar year end.

Can I suggest that we find some time in the next few weeks for us to chat through the questions we have asked in the past and plan to ask this year? Perhaps Wednesday 13 or Thursday 14 August?

After a round of fixing questions and manipulation of data, an email from the Law Society of Scotland complains Ipsos cannot get to work on the survey because the pollster company was “busy with referendum stuff” in reference to the Scottish independence Referendum during September 2014.

“Please find attached the public research with your proposed changes. I will send it on to Ipsos and let them advise on the best way to frame the questions. This research will now not happen before October-they're quite busy with referendum stuff at the moment! If you can get back to me next week with any comments, I would appreciate it.”

During attempts to publicise Ipsos-Mori survey, the Law Society had so much difficulty obtaining publicity it’s own President – Alistair Morris put his name to articles spinning out the poll – which now appears more of a spin session than an accurate accounting of what the public really feel about high charging Scots lawyers who are costing their own legal profession over £1000 a day in compensation awards to ripped off clients.

Outgoing SLCC Chief Executive Matthew Vickers backed the decision to keep much of the details of the SLCC’s involvement with the survey a secret. He also supported the Law Society’s condition of providing documentation to the SLCC on the sly.

Matthew Vickers said: “The information which has been withheld relates to the survey carried out on behalf of the Law Society of Scotland ("the Society") by IPSOS MORI. The SLCC was given the opportunity by the Society to contribute some questions to the survey and following the survey the results of the poll were shared with the SLCC by the Society. The Society provided the material to the SLCC on a confidential basis and this was agreed and reaffirmed with the society at the time.

Vickers – who is standing down from the SLCC to take up a role in mediation at Ombudsman Services, added he strongly rejected any calls for the Law Society documents to be released in the public interest. Vickers said there was a greater interest in withholding the information from the public than releasing it.

Law Society President Alistair Morris said: “Overall, the results from the Ipsos MORI research are very positive and we are delighted that our members are so well thought of. However we can never become complacent and we have to recognise that things do go wrong from time to time. In addition to ensuring that we have a strong regulatory system in place, it’s important that we can understand the reasons behind clients dissatisfaction and what we at the Law Society can do to provide the right support and training to ensure that solicitors offer the advice and services that their clients need, whether they are buying a house, completing a business deal or appearing in court.”

However, it now transpires a number of solicitors did not want anything to do with the survey, some even questioning it’s cost and worth.

Earlier today, a law firm contacted in the survey talked about the discredited poll, admitting they were provided with a scripted response on how to respond to the pollsters.

Speaking to DOI a solicitor claimed he disagreed with the Law Society intruding into solicitor client relationships purely to seek publicity for it’s own ends.

He said: “The Law Society’s desire for publicity is more often than not counter productive and creates an unnecessary air of potential disagreement or conflict if clients refuse to become involved”.

The solicitor indicated colleagues in the profession had also received similar prompts from the Law Society to respond to the “vanity survey”.

Scotland's civil courts system is a mess and consumers have little access to justice, reports 'limited' Consumer Focus survey

Long awaited Consumer Focus research points to lack of access to justice in Scotland's civil courts. SIX YEARS after the Scottish Consumer Council began investigating the mess that is Scotland's civil justice system, the SCC’s latest incarnation, Consumer Focus Scotland, has reported to a rather unsurprised audience that Scotland's civil courts are indeed in the mess we all know them to be, and that access to justice in the civil courts is limited at best, descending to 'non-existent' for most Scots who try to pursue civil law issues on their own.

The research, funded by Consumer Focus Scotland, managed by the Scottish Legal Aid Board, and implemented by market research group IPSOS-MORI, which was initially hoped would interview hundreds of people, eventually only took in the views of 35 court users, because the Scottish Court Service, as I reported yesterday, blocked the release of crucial documents on cases to the research team.

You can download & read a copy of the Consumer Focus Scotland research in acrobat .pdf format : HERE

The problem I have with the report is that there are too few numbers involved in the actual survey, and therefore too few experiences studied & reported to back up what should be wide ranging reform proposals we are all expecting to hear from the work of Lord Gill’s civil court review. The Consumer Focus report conclusion does highlight these shortcomings of a lack of interview subjects for the research, but as many pointed out yesterday in my report on the Scottish Court Service blocking the success of the Consumer Focus research, much more could have been done to attract people into the project.

The Report’s conclusion makes reference to a lack of interview subjects, twice : “This report contains the findings of a small scale, exploratory piece of research which has aimed to build on the existing weak evidence base of the experiences of civil court users in Scotland. Because of the difficulties involved in identifying and accessing court users, our eventual sample of litigants (a combination of those who had contacted an in-court advice service and litigants identified through Scottish Legal Aid Board applications data) cannot be said to be typical of the population of unrepresented litigants currently pursuing cases through the courts – in terms of factors relating to demographics, case and litigant type as well as their experiences, attitudes and behaviour.”

and here : “Lastly, because of the narrow range of sample available to us in order to conduct the research, those interviewed had gone through either a small claims or summary cause action. None had experienced ordinary cause procedure, and considering that these cases are likely to be more complicated, with no standard forms available to help unrepresented litigants, there is good reason for ensuring this group is included in future studies.”

Missing from the report is the fact that for now, consumers access to justice is controlled by the legal services market monopoly enforced by Law Society of Scotland and individual solicitors. The glaring omission in the Consumer Focus research, is the obvious fact that problems with the public’s access to justice in the civil court system can really be explained in one obvious sentence - a lack of access to trustworthy, transparent & accountable legal services & legal representation at a reasonable cost. Access to justice in Scotland, will always be restricted until the element of control the legal profession itself exhibits over the justice system is taken away from them.

A person’s right of access to justice should not be decided by a solicitor on the back of the legal profession’s business for profit model, brutally enforced as a monopoly by the Law Society of Scotland for far too long … a person’s access to justice should be decided by the court after a fair hearing on the individual’s case, with that individual having unrestricted access to the trustworthy, transparent & accountable legal services & legal representation at a reasonable cost which everyone deserves, regardless of wealth or status.

Reforming civil justice and the civil courts is one thing, but any such reforms are meaningless unless the legal services sector itself is reformed, and fully opened up to competition and effective independent regulation, so that people don't need to face the court alone and defend themselves against not only an adversary, but also the less than friendly court environment and also the usual opposing legal counsel who will use every trick in the book to prevent party litigants from gaining a fair hearing in civil court cases.

Now of course, the test comes on how exactly these findings, and indeed the experiences of tens of thousands of other Scots who have used or attempted to use the civil justice system in Scotland, will impact on the forthcoming Civil Courts Review, chaired by Lord Gill, the Lord Justice Clerk. Reform must take place, sooner rather than later - and this time, for the good of the public, not the legal profession.

Here is the Press Release from Consumer Focus Scotland which accompanies the release of the research :

Views and experiences of civil sheriff court users

What’s going to happen to me?

Snapshot of court users points to need for better information and guidance

A study involving people taking and defending civil cases in Scotland’s sheriff courts suggests people too often don’t know what’s going on around them. The snapshot study commissioned by Consumer Focus Scotland and the Scottish Legal Aid Board shows court users can find themselves believing what’s to come is going to be far worse than it turns out to be.

Head of Policy at Consumer Focus Scotland, Sarah O’Neill – herself a solicitor and former in-court adviser – says the research points to an urgent need for better information for the public, and wider access to support services in all courts:

“People who bring their civil cases to court, or defend cases brought against them, who are often representing themselves, told us that it can be worrying and bewildering. While solicitors and some businesses that use the courts a lot may find it all straightforward, the lack of information, and sometimes advice and help services, are disadvantaging people taking or defending a civil case in court, often for the first time.”

Due to advice from the Scottish Court Service that for data protection reasons they were unable to allow us access to court records, the research was confined to in-depth interviews with 35 people contacted through the Scottish Legal Aid Board and In Court Advice Services.

“This can only be a snapshot as we did not manage to reach the numbers and variety of court users needed to create a bigger picture,” says Sarah O’Neill. “However, it is very rare indeed for anyone to ask court users in Scotland for their opinions on the system – there has been little previous research into these issues. A consistent message we got back was that few knew what to expect and many were deeply concerned about understanding the language and procedures.”

In Court Advice Services, now funded by the Scottish Legal Aid Board, were generally praised by users who suggested they needed to be better publicised. Some litigants felt the services were over-stretched and lacked connections with the court’s own staff.

Sarah O’Neill says courts themselves are not seen as user-friendly:

“One complaint was that little thought seems to be given to what is convenient for court users. As one person who pursued a small claims action and represented himself put it: ‘It’s always ten o’clock and it’s always on a Thursday, but you can sit there for two hours.’

“Of course, what no research with court users will ever tell us is how many people are put off pursuing their case as a result of their preconceptions about what’s involved. This is another reason why investment in giving people a deeper understanding of the Scottish legal system is essential to opening up civil justice.”

The findings of the study are being submitted to the Civil Courts review being led by Lord Gill, and to the Scottish Government.

Notes for Editors

The interviews undertaken by Ipsos MORI with litigants covered:

* Accessing civil justice
* Appearing in court
* Fairness of process
* Self-representation
* Information provision
* Court staff
* In-court advice services
* Cost of litigation
* Timescales

Those interviewed had been involved in a variety of case types, including small claims actions, debt, housing and eviction cases and mortgage repossession proceedings. The court users interviewed fell into categories:

respondent TYPE

Civil Legal Aid Applicant : 19

Received advice from in-court advice service : 16

LITIGANT TYPE

Defender : 26 Pursuer : 9

COURT HEARINGS

Case heard in court : 17 Case not heard in court : 17 Not sure whether case heard in court : 1

Representation in court

Of 17 cases heard in court Represented by solicitor in court at some stage in proceedings : 6

Represented self in court at some stage in proceedings : 9 Case heard in court but did not attend : 2

Quotes from Interviews:

[About the prospect of going to court] They seem to use a lot of legal jargon…I’m pretty much a straight talking person, I’m not one for the words that they use….I could possibly have used the wrong word or put it in a different way and it wouldn’t have helped me.

Pursuer, small claims action, received advice from in-court advice service, case not heard in court

I wouldn’t have a clue what to do anyway, they’re professionals so they know the ins and outs….I’d rather they did it and did it correct than I did it and made an ass of it.

Defender, mortgage arrears, represented by solicitor in court

“I was actually shaking to be quite honest with you….What was going to happen to me, was I going to go to jail? I was sitting outside the courtroom and I was biting my nails and I was like, ‘what’s going to happen to me?’. I was in a terrible state and the boy next to me said, ‘nothing’s going to happen to you’, and I was actually crying. I thought honestly….I thought I was going to jail. Nobody had said what would happen to me”

Defender, rent arrears, received advice from in-court advice service, represented self in court

“Perhaps a leaflet or some form of information about what to expect, you know, how the process runs through….along with my letter to appear in court.”

Defender, rent arrears, represented by solicitor in court

In-court advice services

The Scottish Consumer Council, one of Consumer Focus’s predecessor organisations, established the first in-court advice service in Edinburgh alongside Citizens’ Advice Scotland, and has been a key supporter of their expansion. There are now six in-court advice services in Scotland, in Aberdeen, Airdrie, Dundee, Edinburgh, Hamilton and Kilmarnock. The Scottish Legal Aid Board assumed funding responsibility for these services in April 2009 and is working with them to build capacity where needed and ensure that they are responsive to the needs of those appearing in court unrepresented.

‘McKenzie Friends’

Consumer Focus Scotland is also submitting its written evidence to the Public Petitions committee of the Scottish Parliament on the introduction of ‘McKenzie Friends’ to assist unrepresented litigants The evidence states that Consumer Focus Scotland supports the introduction of McKenzie Friends, and that while the research does not purport to offer a definitive conclusion on the views of court users, it does suggest that unrepresented litigants might benefit from the opportunity to have a McKenzie Friend with them in court, who could provide them with moral support and other appropriate assistance. Having such support available could help take away some of the fear associated with appearing in court and therefore potentially improve the experience of unrepresented litigants in court.

Scottish Court Service ‘blocked work’ of £30k Consumer Focus access to justice report for Lord Gill’s civil court review

Scottish Court Service blocked the success of independent research into civil justice court users. A survey of Scots experiences in using the civil justice system, funded by Consumer Focus Scotland, managed by the Scottish Legal Aid Board, and implemented by market research group IPSOS-MORI, which was initially hoped would interview hundreds of people but eventually only took in the views of 35 court users, is raising questions from consumers & solicitors after it was revealed the Scottish Court Service had effectively blocked the wider success of the research, by refusing to hand over court documents & data to the researchers. The uncooperative attitude of the Court Service has led to accusations the SCS has diminished the effectiveness of the survey, which has today been revealed to have cost the taxpayer at least £30,000.

The Scottish Legal Aid Board received £30K from Consumer Focus to manage the research. Colin Lancaster, Director of Policy & Development at the Scottish Legal Aid Board commented : "The Board received a contribution of £30,000 from Consumer Focus Scotland for the commissioning of the work. The Board contributed the internal resource to cover the commissioning exercise and project management for the research. A total of £28,400 (inc. VAT) has been paid for the development, fieldwork and reporting on the first phase of the research. The findings report will be published in the next couple of weeks. Before the research is published we will be formally handing the findings over to Lord Gill. The cost of the research should be viewed across the life of the project, including any second phase. This work is in an area where unfortunately there was little previous research to learn from in terms of approach, methodology, research tools etc.”

He continued : “We commissioned the work to a highly reputable research contractor with excellent quality control mechanisms. The work was carried out by senior researchers with expertise in qualitative research and in talking to people about potentially emotional experiences and subject areas. The field work was very time consuming, requiring our contractor to design interview schedules, work with a number of separate agencies, follow up leads, secure consent and an interview time, interview, code, analyse and report."

You can read more about the research specification for the project, here : Research Specification - Consumer Views & Experiences of using the Civil Courts in Scotland (pdf)

Consumer Focus Scotland let it be known the Scottish Court Service had refused access to court records for the research. A spokeswoman for Consumer Focus Scotland, asked about the aims of their research, said : "Our intention was therefore to gather evidence that would help us to better understand the nature and drivers of individual civil court users’ views and experiences of the sheriff courts. We hoped that the research would provide useful evidence for the civil courts review."

"We had set out to do a large scale quantitative survey of the experiences of people who had been involved in the courts process. However, we were unable to do so when early in the process the Scottish Court Service advised us that for data protection reasons they were unable to allow us access to the necessary court records. While this was very disappointing, we had to look for other ways of carrying out the research. A qualitative methodology was then developed through approaching in-court advisers, and through using data on legally aided parties held by SLAB."

She continued : "In terms of how we will use the research, the final research report following the interviews with 35 people with experience of the civil courts will be published next month, and will be sent to the civil courts review. We hope that it will provide a useful evidence base for the review and for the Scottish government in taking forward any future reforms of the civil justice system, as well as any possible future research."

"The final research report will not therefore give the broad perspective that we had initially sought, but will provide an important snapshot of the experiences of the people involved."

The whole idea of reforming Scotland's civil courts was begun over six years ago, when the Scottish Consumer Council, with the support of the then Scottish Executive, secured funding from the Nuffield Foundation to carry out a series of seminars to critically examine the civil justice system, and to encourage proposals for change and development. The SCC set up a Civil Justice Advisory Group representing various stakeholder interests, chaired by the Right Honourable Lord Coulsfield, to take the process forward.

The final report of the Advisory Group was published in November 2005. It concluded that while some aspects of the system are working well, there was a need for review of a number of aspects of the system, which in turn brought the announcement in February 2007 during the previous administration of a review of the civil courts, led by Lord Gill, the Lord Justice Clerk, which you can read more about here : Civil Courts Review

However, today even members of the legal profession questioned the effectiveness of the independent research effort, after it was leaked a few weeks ago, that plans by Scottish Ministers to use the results of the survey to scale back some of Lord Gill's proposals for civil justice reform, had to be themselves scaled back after media outlets including 'Diary of Injustice' published the fact that only 35 people had taken part in the actual research project.

A legal insider said : "With only 35 people being interviewed for a survey to support the Gill civil court review, it must make people wonder what on earth is going on in the justice system when the author of the review Lord Gill stands up at a conference, effectively calls Scots law antiquated, and then the Court Service who are running the Gill review, effectively block the Consumer Focus survey from obtaining interviews of court users by refusing to hand over documents to the research teams."

"With the obstructive attitude from the Court Service, anyone would think they didn't want the Consumer Focus research to succeed in reporting actual court users experiences to back up the Gill reforms. Why didn’t someone get MacAskill to do something about it ?"

He continued : "While I'm sure the research team has done a great job working within the restrictions forced on them by the SCS, in the end, a survey of only 35 people to back up what is being billed as a wide ranging set of reform proposals to Scotland's civil justice system is not as potent as a survey with a few hundred court users who could easily have been found had it not been for the SCS, and this would have sat a lot better alongside Lord Gill's report."

An ex highly placed official of the Scottish Consumer Council when asked for their opinion on the problems encountered by the researchers said : "The Scottish Consumer Council would never have settled for such a small head count on a project of such importance as this."

He continued : "Perhaps the Scottish Court Service felt a bit put out that independent research was being done into their own review and that was the real reason they blocked the researcher's access to more information. I think the problems of ‘data protection’ could have been easily ironed out if someone from the Scottish Government had stepped in and ‘banged heads together’."

The Scottish Court Service were asked for comment on why they had refused to hand over documentation to the research team to assist the consumer orientated survey. However, they have not replied to enquiries.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill could have done much to assist the independent research into civil court users access to justice. The Consumer Focus report is due for release tomorrow, 31 July, and while its contents should prove interesting, I am left wondering why there has not been more cooperation between the Scottish Courts Service, Consumer Focus Scotland, the Scottish Legal Aid Board, and of course, the Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who himself could have seen to it the CFS sponsored research obtained a much greater sample of people to generate as much valuable information as possible, from civil justice court users, and of course, many others across Scotland who find it impossible to even get into a court.

After all, It is fairly obvious now that in Scotland, there are many people who are denied access to the civil justice system, either through lack of access to legal representation, lack of information and advice, and because the court process is itself, intimidating, remote, complex and expensive. This prejudice, by the legal system, against the public, must be ended, with full thought given to the public interest, rather than the usual prioritising of the vested interests of the legal profession, who prefer to maintain their long held monopoly on access to justice by forcing consumers down the usual route of engaging the exorbitantly costly & very poor quality legal services on offer by Scotland’s legal profession.

Surely the needs of ordinary Scots who cannot obtain access to justice in our own country must be addressed, and the public granted freedom to use a modern day civil justice system in Scotland, rather than continue to encounter restricted access to what Lord Gill himself refers to as our Victorian-aged justice system.