Lawyers protests over low legal aid fees revealed to be fake as Law Society's own research points to increase

The so-called 'strike' by Scotland's legal profession over the alleged lack of payments of legal aid in the Fixed Fees system, seems to have been rubbished by research from the Law Society of Scotland itself, throwing into question the validity of the claims of local Bar Associations of impoverished Solicitors having to boycott everything from family law cases to Criminal cases, .. just to get that wee bit more legal aid into their pockets.

I covered this story back in October, here : Scottish legal profession supports using family law cases to blackmail Executive for more legal aid fees & less reform. and here :
Legal Aid dispute continues to be used by lawyers against planned reforms of legal profession by LPLA Bill

However, today in the Scotsman newspaper, we have the legal profession spinning out an 'unpublished report' - which was actually conducted under their own auspices by Cyrus Tata & Professor Frank Stephens of Manchester University .. showing the Legal Aid reforms announced by the Scottish Executive back in 1999 have failed to stem the rise of legal aid payments to lawyers.

Wait a second though ... didn't lawyers up and down Scotland only a couple of months ago claim they weren't getting enough money .... so they had to strike & boycott legal cases to gain increased legal aid payments ?

Well, as of this morning so far, the Law Society of Scotland haven't joined in the fun with a press release of it's own on the shrill cries of Executive bury's evidence of legal aid reform failure. That in itself, is unusual, as the Law Society usually fire out a Press Release to accompany whatever story they wished published for the next day, unless of course, they don't want it to look as if it's been managed that way .. which incidentally, it does.

So, Cyrus Tata and Frank Stephens report in their findings that when fixed fees were introduced, £30 million was being spent a year on summary legal aid in sheriff courts. Following the introduction of fee-capping, that fell to £27 million. But by 2002, the bill had increased to £32 million with an extra 10,000 cases being funded by legal aid.

How does this square with the recent claims by lawyers they were impoverished and had to strike, boycotting a range of civil law & criminal law cases to gain increases in fixed fees from the Executive - which of course they did - after their strike.

Lawyers even went off to form a new national Bar Association on the pretext the Law Society wasn't up to the job of lobbying for their interests Hundreds to join new lawyers' union - with regard to legal aid payments & the loss of regulating (fiddling) complaints against their colleagues and up & down Scotland, local Bar Associations organised strikes & boycotts of cases, causing even delays to criminal trials of the likes of sex offenders, .. all because lawyers were getting paid more legal aid ?

Well, thanks for clearing that one up, Mr Tata & Mr Stephens. The claims in the strike were obviously bogus. Lawyers were getting more money all the time, & claiming for things they weren't claiming for before .. we never heard anything of that in the legal profession's protests & briefings on the alleged lack of legal aid payments.

This time certainly, I don't think the blame lies with the Scottish Executive at all on the allegations of burying the evidence - this is Law Society sponsored research - that's why it appeared in the Journal of the Law Society - their own publication. Why didn't the Law Society do their usual open press briefings, releases & multiple phone calls to all the newspapers to ensure the story was going in ?

If we want the Executive to publish every little bit of research into the legal profession, maybe we should expect stories appearing on the Executive site like this Daily Record expose on lawyers bribing clients to fill out legal aid forms: BUNG TO RIGHTS .. which is more common than some would have the public believe ..

For that matter, does the Executive have to publish all the Law Society's paid opinions such as the one of FibDem peer Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC who concluded it would be a breach of lawyers human rights to have complaints against lawyers independently regulated so they basically couldn't continue to fiddle client complaints against their colleagues ? ..... I think we don't need to hear propaganda from the legal profession coming straight out of the Executive.

Such a pity the Scotsman didn't put a link in the story to the summary of Tata & Stephen's report published by the Executive on 7th December, rather than that long tedious description of where it lies in some 'sandwiched state'... which is obviously just for effect .. after all .. links to You Tube videos on vandalism in the Capital & reports on everything from health to the McKie case, have made it to the Scotsman website .. why not be a little more consistent .. or is it just because the legal profession says so, this story appears.

With all respect to Kenny MaCaskill & the rest at Holyrood, I wish he was more tuned into the way the legal profession handles the media & stories like this, although it is ironic the 'unpublished' research, which the Law Society actually did publish itself, kills off the legal profession's own protests of lack of legal aid .... How about someone point that one out please ? .. or is it even too much of an effort to state the obvious these days.

I'll be kind and link to the Journal of the Law Society's published version of this 'unpublished research'. See it here : Fixed payments: a real impact?

As for me, well, I like my sandwiches with plenty bacon, or even a salad for that healthy touch.. but I never .. NEVER .. bury my sandwiches between sandwiches !

Article from the Scotsman :

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=52402007

Legal aid cash saving plan is a flop
MICHAEL HOWIE HOME AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT

* Unpublished report shows legal-aid reforms have been unsuccessful
* Lawyers now making claims where previously they would not have
* Executive accused of 'burying bad news' in failure to publish

Key quote
"We are in danger of seeing the Executive covering up and the legal-aid board simply burgeoning as a bureaucracy, not as a service-provider. The whole legal-aid system is in meltdown." - KENNY MACASKILL, SNP

Story in full LEGAL-AID reforms aimed at saving millions of pounds have been a failure and the Scottish Executive has been accused of concealing damning evidence.

The Scotsman has learned that a study completed two years ago - which has yet to be published - found that fixed fees for lawyers have failed to deliver an anticipated £10 million cut in Scotland's legal-aid bill.

The research concludes that fee-capping for summary criminal work, introduced in 1999, may in fact have increased the overall legal-aid bill by encouraging lawyers to submit thousands more claims.

The findings have led to claims of a "meltdown" in the legal-aid system, which last year cost taxpayers £148 million.

And the failure to publish the research has also prompted fresh accusations that ministers and senior civil servants are suppressing information.

A spokesman for the Executive said the research was being held "for a variety of factors", but was unable to explain what these were. However, he said researchers had been given permission to present their findings at conferences and in journals.

He also said that a brief, three-page summary of the report's findings was posted on the Executive's website last month.

Fixed fees of £300 for cases in the district court and £500 for those in the sheriff courts were introduced to cut costs by speeding up the system.

Writing about their research in the latest issue of the Law Society Journal, Cyrus Tata and Frank Stephens, from Strathclyde and Manchester universities, said that prior to fixed fees, lawyers often did not bother to claim for all advice and assistance given, instead only billing for main cases.

But they found that after the fees were introduced, lawyers were far more meticulous in their billing, making up shortfalls from individual cases by submitting more claims.

When fixed fees were introduced, £30 million was being spent a year on summary legal aid in sheriff courts. Following the introduction of fee-capping, that fell to £27 million. But by 2002, the bill had increased to £32 million with an extra 10,000 cases being funded by legal aid.

Kenny MacAskill, the SNP's justice spokesman, said the Executive's failure to release the report was "utterly unacceptable".

He added: "We are in danger of seeing the Executive covering up and the legal-aid board simply burgeoning as a bureaucracy, not as a service-provider. The whole legal-aid system is in meltdown."

Margaret Mitchell, the Scots Tories' justice spokeswoman, accused the Executive of "burying bad news".

"They have sat on this report for 18 months, putting a sledgehammer through their claims that this would be an open, accountable and transparent government."

A spokesman for the Executive said allowing researchers to present their findings "demonstrates our willingness to have the findings in the public domain". He added: "We are hoping to publish the full report very soon."

BURYING BAD NEWS?

A SUMMARY of Cyrus Tata's and Frank Stephens' findings was posted on the Scottish Executive website on 7 December.

The paper boils down to three short pages, 14 months of research, involving analysis of legal-aid board data over five years and scores of interviews with solicitors.

No press release was issued to announce the release of the long-awaited findings, which have been kept under wraps for nearly two years. The document was instead posted among hundreds of other papers in the website's "publications" section, which can be entered by clicking on a link on the home page.

It can be found sandwiched between the chief fire and rescue service inspector's annual report, and a justice department circular on "the implementation of the integrated case management process from 1 June, 2006".

Chief Executive of the Law Society of Scotland branded a liar after FSA denies claims of intervention to block complaints body.

Would it surprise you if I said that Douglas Mill, Chief Executive of the Law Society of Scotland, is a liar ?

Would it also surprise you that many clients of Scottish solicitors, who have fallen foul of a crooked lawyer & have had to endure the torturous, corrupt, prejudiced & lengthy complaints & claims procedures of the Law Society of Scotland, also believe Douglas Mill to be, a liar ?

Well, last week, Douglas Mill, Chief Executive of the Law Society of Scotland, claimed, in an interview for an article in the Herald newspaper, that the Financial Services Authority would block the workings of the proposed independent legal complaints body which is proposed in the Legal Profession & Legal Aid (Scotland) Bill, if it were to attempt scrutiny of the Law Society of Scotland's professional indemnity insurance scheme for Scottish solicitors, otherwise known as the Master Insurance Policy, which all solicitors are mandated to pay into by the rules of the Law Society of Scotland.

You can read my coverage of last week's Court Challenge threat by Mill, here : Law Society of Scotland threatens Court challenge against Scottish Executive over LPLA legal reform Bill

This week, the FSA has completely denied any such claim, giving rise to allegations that Douglas Mill, lied on this point, which he and the rest of the legal profession are using as but part of their determined campaign of dirty tricks against the pro consumer reforms planned in the LPLA Bill.

Losing control over complaints against solicitors, has to be one of the greatest failures of the legal profession - but they only have themselves to blame.

For decades, the Law Society of Scotland has been the self-regulator of the legal profession - where lawyer regulates complaints against fellow lawyers .. otherwise known, as a recipe for corruption, dishonesty, & a license to commit dirty tricks against anyone making complaints against colleagues in order to throw out complaints or mitigate any punishment against unmasked crooked colleagues.

The LPLA Bill will end most of this - as complaints against the legal profession, are to be handled by the proposed Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, which will also have a degree of oversight over the Master Insurance Policy of the Scottish legal profession - which handles damages claims from clients against negligent lawyers.

The Master Insurance Policy is administered by the infamous Marsh Inc (albeit Marsh UK) ... Marsh Inc, the parent company, you will recall, was caught up in a gigantic corruption scandal in the United States, after new York District Attorney Eliot Spitzer brought charges against the company - resulting in large fines, several resignations of it's Board members .. and at the end of it, an admission of guilt .. simply because the evidence was overwhelming.

Nothing was done about Marsh in the UK .. at least so far, but there is an EU investigation going on into it's activities .. as well as other insurers, which I will be keeping tabs on and letting you all know about soonish.

To quote today's Herald newspaper article :

Last week, Douglas Mill, the Law Society of Scotland's Chief Executive, said the FSA - together with insurer Royal & SunAlliance - would tell the proposed Scottish Legal Complaints Commission to "take a hike" if the proposed new body decided to seek to examine claims and the handling of claims against the master policy.

This is to be part of the commission's role under the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Bill, which last week completed stage two at Holyrood.

Independent scrutiny of the policy, which covers compensation claims against Scottish solicitors arising from negligence, fraud or dishonesty, is strongly favoured by consumer groups. Critics such as the Scottish Consumer Council have complained that the policy lacks transparency.

A spokesman for the FSA said the Canary Wharf-based watchdog is unlikely to interfere. He said: "I think if anyone were to tell (the Scottish Parliament) to take a hike, it would be more likely to be the Treasury, since it was the Treasury which was responsible for the Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000 which laid down the powers of the FSA.

So, what is going on here ?

Well, some would say, a campaign of disinformation - well organised by the Law Society of Scotland, in order to scare the Scottish Parliament into voting down the LPLA Bill when it comes round for a vote ... some would also say .. it's part of the dirty tricks campaign of the legal profession to cause fear in the wake of their threatened Court challenge against the LPLA Bill which Douglas Mill so bravely made last week.

I would say - it's a desperate move on the part of the legal profession - to prevent any oversight of the workings of what must be the most corrupt, most crooked, most devious & dirty financial insurance scheme in existence to cover 'professional negligence' claims, in our time - and believe me, as one who has been up against the Master Insurance Policy - what I have said is no overstatement.

Imagine giving someone a licence to lie, to steal, to intervene in people's personal lives, to undermine their work, to undermine their business or livelihood, to intimidate their family (if needed), to find out every single scrap of information on that person & their entire family, including medical records, all financial records, what they do, their habits, their history, their lifestyle, any criminal record, even what they throw in their garbage.

You think I am talking about the Security Services, right ? No, I'm not. I'm talking about the legal profession and the Master Insurance Policy and what I say, I say from experience, remember, not from reading a book.

I was a claimant to the Master Insurance Policy - over the activities of crooked Scottish Borders solicitor Andrew Penman of Stormonth Darling Solicitors, Kelso

My claim got nowhere - I was intimidated by just about every means possible, my family was put under a microscope, by these legal 'thugs' at Drumsheugh Gardens - along with their colleagues at Marsh UK (then called Sedgwicks) and of course, the Royal & Sun Alliance PLC, (the insurers to the legal profession) .. and this merry gang even sanctioned having the local Police investigate & intimidate me over false information given to them by a professional colleague of Penman, the Executir of my late father's will ... crooked Borders Accountant Norman Howitt of Welch & Co, Accountants, Hawick & Galashiels ... and at the end of it, the amount I was offered was only to cover the legal expenses of making the claim in the first place - and this is how the Master Insurance Policy works - all the while, paying both my solicitors, and the crooked solicitor, bonuses for reducing anyones claim against a lawyer, to nothing.

The way I have just described how the Master Insurance Policy allows the legal profession to defend itself against a client who makes a financial claim for negligence against a crooked lawyer - is one of the core reasons that Douglas Mill and his crooked band of colleagues over at Drumsheigh Gardens, Edinburgh - the Law Society of Scotland HQ, are desperate to keep out of the prying eyes of an independent regulator. .. so, telling lies to the media, getting fabourable media articles written by lawyers disguised as journalists, telling lies to Parliamentary Committees, threatening politicians and even leaking details of their activities to try & swing a forthcoming legislative vote, comes as small beer to the legal profession in it's absolute determination to kill off any chance of independent regulation.

Do I think Douglas Mill is a liar ? well, yes I do.

You have all seen in earlier articles, what Douglas Mill did to me, personally .. and in what became his own, highly personalised & vindictive campaign against me (and many other claimants I know) .. he famously fiddled my claim for civil legal aid so I wouldn't get to progress my case - a dirty trick indeed, but one which comes quite easy to a man who, despite his claims to the contrary, becomes involved in client claims against solicitors - to make sure they get nowhere - just as he did in the MacKenzie's claim .. just as he did in mine, and just as he has done in so many others .. with help from some of his infamous colleagues .. such as Philip Yelland, Director of Client Relations .. and the now retirned Leslie Cumming, Chief Accountant of the Law Society of Scotland - who also became involved in fiddling many a complaint against a crooked lawyer to let them off the hook ...

There is no doubt, the Master Insurance Policy needs independent scrutiny of its workings and behaviour, when it comes to dealing with claims made by clients of crooked or negligent solicitors.

There is also, just as importantly, the issue of how the Master insurance Policy has operated in the past .. against those members of the public who have tried & failed to bring negligence claims against Scotland's legal profession, because of the actions & dirty tricks of those who administer, operate & fund the Master Insurance Policym ensuring claims against lawyers in Scotland, get nowhere.

Those dirty sins of the past, need to be fully investigated, publicised, and accounted for, and the victims of the way the Master Insurance Policy has been implemented in the past must be duly & deservingly compensated.

Read on for the article, from The Herald, at : http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/73713.html (Herald link now out of date)

FSA denies it will block independent complaints body
IAN FRASER November 06 2006

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has denied that it will intervene to block the planned independent complaints-handling body for Scottish solicitors from scrutinising claims under the Law Society of Scotland's controversial master insurance policy.

Last week, Douglas Mill, the society's chief executive, said the regulator - together with insurer Royal & SunAlliance - would tell the proposed Scottish Legal Complaints Commission to "take a hike" if the proposed new body decided to seek to examine claims and the handling of claims against the master policy.

This is to be part of the commission's role under the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Bill, which last week completed stage two at Holyrood.

Independent scrutiny of the policy, which covers compensation claims against Scottish solicitors arising from negligence, fraud or dishonesty, is strongly favoured by consumer groups. Critics such as the Scottish Consumer Council have complained that the policy lacks transparency.

A spokesman for the FSA said the Canary Wharf-based watchdog is unlikely to interfere. He said: "I think if anyone were to tell (the Scottish Parliament) to take a hike, it would be more likely to be the Treasury, since it was the Treasury which was responsible for the Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000 which laid down the powers of the FSA.

"They are more likely than the FSA to have view on something that potentially contravenes the Authority's powers under the Financial Services and Markets Act.

"Policyholders would have a view if their ability to recover from (the master policy) were to be curtailed. If you have a commercial contract with an insurer and if another body - let's say the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission - were to try to intervene or meddle in that contract, then I guess that your first course of action would be to go to that body (the SLCC)."

In an interview with The Herald last week, Mill said: "They (the SLCC) want to look at claims against the master policy and how these are handled. But they cannot do that. If they do try to do this, I believe the insurers
and the Financial Services Authority will tell the Scottish Parliament to take a hike."

The master policy is a compulsory arrangement for professional indemnity insurance that all Scottish solicitors working in private practice must contribute to annually.

The society arranges the policy through the insurance brokers Marsh. Claims are handled by the current insurers Royal & SunAlliance. The insurance provides cover of up to £1.5m for any one claim.