Our performance and improvement

Complaint timescales

We continued to closely monitor timescales in the complaint process. With the number of complaints made to us rising this year, we worked hard to progress cases timeously, using our resource flexibly and bringing in additional staffing as necessary. We’re pleased to report that this year saw an increase in the cases we closed, showing our hard work to keep pace with incoming demand.

An unusual caseload, driven by one ceased firm

This year we saw a rise in incoming complaints, primarily, although not entirely, driven by the closure of Greenock law firm WW & J Mcclure Limited which went into administration and ceased trading in early 2021. Since then we have seen increasing numbers of enquiries and complaints as clients learned about its demise and were advised that their files had been passed to another firm.

Complaints relating to this firm and the transfer of its files have been unusual within our caseload. Due to the nature of the firm’s work, the issues raised, and the firm having ceased, a much higher than usual percentage of these complaints have been deemed eligible and proceeded to full investigation and determination. We’ve also needed significant ongoing engagement with insurers, the broker and the Law Society of Scotland to ensure that, as far as possible, those who had been awarded redress received it through the indemnity arrangements required for regulated firms. While we welcome their engagement on this and the work to ensure this has happened, many people waited too long to receive their awards and we spent unnecessary time chasing payments and keeping complainers updated on progress.

We’ve also dealt with a high number of enquiries from concerned clients, many of whom needed additional support to be able to make a complaint. All of this has had an impact on our workload this year.

As well as dealing with individual clients and complaints, we’ve also been engaging with informal support groups, MSPs and MPs supporting their constituents, as well as a range of other stakeholders including the Law Society of Scotland, Legal Ombudsman (England and Wales), the Solicitors Regulation Authority (England and Wales), advice and consumer agencies, and Police Scotland.

This year we took two unusual steps in response to this issue. The first is that we attended two public meetings in Greenock, organised by the local MSP for those affected by the firm’s closure. The SLCC has a duty to provide advice regarding making complaints. Although we were restricted in what we could say about the circumstances of the firm or about individual complaints, we felt it was in line with our public duties and could help support access to justice to attend and provide information and advice for those wanting to take forward a complaint. In all, 300 people attended these meetings.

The second is that we have commented publicly on this issue, including in this report and providing a briefing to MSPs in advance of a parliamentary debate in February 2024. Our legislation restricts us from discussing individual complaints. However, with significant information already in the public domain, and questions being asked about how the situation was being addressed and how similar circumstances could be avoided in future, we felt that providing appropriate information to inform those discussions would be helpful and the right thing to do.

A focus on mediation

We identified uptake of our mediation offer as a key area for action as we see high success rates in resolving complaints where mediation takes place. We contacted complainers proactively to outline the benefits of mediation, to explain how it works and to answer any questions they might have. We filmed and published a new mediation video featuring one of our mediators and are now using it with complainers to encourage them to consider taking part. We are also using clips from the video as part of a wider social media campaign to highlight this key part of our approach to resolution.

Failures to respond

We continue to see significant issues with solicitors not co-operating with our investigations. This includes not providing information or a file when we make a statutory request for it because we need it to consider a complaint. Throughout this year, we have taken further steps to address this systemic issue.

We are testing a new approach to standardising our responses to extension requests from parties to ensure we are being fair but firm in our approach.

We have continued to raise legal actions in the Court of Session to obtain files, which is our only recourse where practitioners do not engage with us. We have seen a number of those cases procced as far as contempt of court hearings this year, although no further findings of contempt have been made. While the court continues to make clear its concern about this issue, it remains the case that we can only address each individual instance of non-compliance in isolation.

Now, having seen a pattern of these cases, we are concerned that the defence to having 'wilfully' ignored or defied the court has often been that the management of the legal practice is so poor that failure to comply was not wilful, or the health of the practitioner is such that they cannot respond. These statements to the court raise serious public protection concerns about the management of legal practices and solicitors’ abilities to meet their professional duties, even where their actions are not judged to meet the test of wilful defiance of or disrespect towards the court. It also highlights the need for the regulatory system to take action to protect the public, even if a contempt finding is not supported. We intend to explore this further in the coming year and have set out our view that a better, less costly and more productive solution is needed.

The significant and increasing costs of non-compliance by solicitors is also pushing us to consider alternative approaches. We are currently testing an approach on a small number of cases where we move to take decisions without access to any files or response from the solicitor, if these have not been provided on request, based on the evidence we do have available. We will assess the eventual outcome of these cases, and whether in some or all situations of non-compliance this may be an appropriate approach for us to take.