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Ryan's story

“My solicitor wouldn’t answer my calls”

Ryan said:

I had been convicted – unfairly I felt – of a traffic offence.  There was information that the court hadn’t taken into consideration.  It was causing me a lot of anxiety because I knew if I lost my licence, I could end up losing my job too.  I knew I needed to appeal.   

I found a solicitor and although things started off well, the problems soon started.  My solicitor wrote to me within a few weeks to tell me that she had started the application process for my appeal, but I had no idea what would be involved, how long it might take or how much it would cost.  I was worried about all of that, so I called her office repeatedly to try to find out.  She never called me back and for months, I had no idea what was happening with the case. 

In the end, I got a letter to say that my application to appeal had been accepted.  But that didn’t change the fact that my calls and emails had been ignored and nobody had bothered explaining the process to me.  Her failure to keep in contact with me had caused me a lot of unnecessary stress.  I didn’t feel it was a good service, so I contacted the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission.

The SLCC said:

We wrote to Ryan to tell him we’d be upholding his complaint.  Because his solicitor hadn’t responded to his phone calls or emails, Ryan had received “an inadequate professional service”.  We agreed that this would have caused Ryan some worry and concern and so we awarded him £150 in compensation.