Watchdog takes over complaints against lawyers | UK news | The Guardian

The Law Society and the Bar Council will lose their powers to investigate complaints against lawyers in England and Wales under a package of radical reforms announced yesterday by the lord chancellor, Lord Falconer.

A single complaints body independent of the profession, the Office for Legal Complaints, will handle all consumer complaints against barristers, solicitors and a range of other legal professionals, including licensed conveyancers and legal executives.

The Bar Council and the Law Society will continue to regulate barristers' and solicitors' conduct, but will have to separate their regulatory function from their trade union role of representing their members.

A new Legal Services Board (LSB) will oversee their regulatory work and will have a sliding scale of powers such as setting targets and imposing fines.

"Derecognising a professional body if that body fails in its duties is the nuclear option," Lord Falconer told a conference in London. "But it will be there to be used if needed."

The reforms will also open the way for "Tesco law" - allowing retailers and other organisations to employ lawyers offering legal services to the public, so a customer would be able to have a will drawn up while buying groceries. So far, only the RAC has indicated that it might take advantage of such a change.

Lawyers will also be allowed to practise for the first time in partnership with other professionals, such as accountants and financial advisers, creating a one-stop shop.

And outside investors will be able to take a financial stake in a law firm - a move which the Bar Council has dubbed "Maxwell law", arguing that it risks letting the ownership of law firms fall into criminal hands.

Lord Falconer promised a white paper outlining the reforms, which were recommended last December by Sir David Clementi, chairman of the Prudential, to be followed by legislation. He rejected the view that centralisation of complaints would lead to a slower service.

The announcement came as Which?, formerly the Consumers' Association, published a survey of just over 2,000 people which found that eight out of 10 had used solicitors but a third of those who had done so felt they did not receive a good service. A Which? spokesman, Nick Stace, said: "Self-regulation is not working. People complain to Which? time and again about the service they receive from solicitors. It's time for the government to rein in this complaint-riddled industry."

Lord Falconer said there would have to be a "fitness" test to ensure criminals or other undesirables did not become investors in law firms. "If we allow outside capital and outside ownership we could end up with unsavoury people owning or part-owning law firms. I'm absolutely clear that outside ownership must be properly regulated."

The reforms were welcomed by consumer organisations and by the Law Society, which has struggled to get to grips with a tide of complaints which have reached one for every six solicitors.

A spokesman for the Bar Council, which has a high rate of consumer satisfaction for its complaints system, said: "The Office for Legal Complaints in our case is unnecessary bureaucracy. It's actually creating a structure which is going to add no value. The level of complaints has fallen for the third year in a row."

The shadow attorney general, Dominic Grieve, said: "We don't believe in the so-called Tesco law, which would allow outside agencies to own or run law firms. This is just an attempt to give the government more power over lawyers."