SCC wants regulation by non-lawyers
17 Aug 05
Consumer Council says public confidence needs independent body
The Law Society of Scotland should lose its complaints-handling function, and should itself be governed by a majority of non-solicitors, according to the Scottish Consumer Council.
In its response to the Scottish Executive's consultation on regulation of the legal profession, the SCC founds strongly on the need to build consumer confidence. While it accepts that the Society has introduced improvements in recent years, it believes that not enough has been done to restore public trust.
"The greatest weakness in the present system for handling complaints against solicitors is the lack of consumer confidence in the ability of the Law Society of Scotland to adjudicate impartially on complaints", its submission says.
"The move [compared with 20 or 30 years ago] is away from in-house complaints handling towards independent schemes, because that appears to be the only way to ensure consumers will have confidence in the adjudication of complaints. This issue of confidence is crucially important, particularly in the provision of legal services."
The SCC wants to see a "single gateway" model for handling complaints, with investigations done by an independent body with a lay chair and lay majority, similar to the most radical option in the Executive's consultation paper.
It further claims that the Law Society of Scotland's current governance arrangements reflect the interests of a membership body rather than a regulator in the public interest, and proposes that regardless of whether it continues to handle complaints against members, it should be governed by a non-lawyer majority.