Helping firms while protecting clients - a committee champion

Paul Faris is a member of the Client Protection Sub-Committee and was previously a Claims Manager at Scottish Provident.

The team I was part of at Scottish Provident achieved, I am proud to say, a 5* customer service rating. My role involved daily contact with customers, and I also worked closely with our in-house legal team.

On retirement, my wife wanted me out of the house – she worked from home and was used to having the house to herself. I felt I had quite a lot to offer in the understanding of customers’ needs. I, therefore, sought out some committee member roles in several organisations. One of the most interesting has been the Client Protection Sub-Committee (CPSC) of the Law Society of Scotland. I joined at the start of 2022, having served on Client Relations and Professional Conduct Sub-Committees with the Society previously.

The CPSC’s role is to do what the title says – Client Protection. There are both bad solicitors and sad solicitors and CPSC exists to minimise the risk to clients from both. There are very few bad solicitors who deliberately or recklessly defraud clients – more often firms get themselves into difficulties running their business.

Sometimes partners were just too inexperienced in running a business, over-expanded or failed to keep abreast of modern technology and rule changes. The Financial Compliance Team send a report to CPSC and we decide what action should be taken.

Sometimes we are satisfied that the inspection process has served as sufficient a wake-up call for the firm and we agree to take no further action. In other cases, we invite the solicitor or solicitors for an ordinary interview before a panel (usually three members of the CPSC). These are cases where we want to emphasise the importance of proper financial management and confirm that the Society is there to offer help and guidance to hopefully get back on a firm footing. These can be quite fulfilling interviews.

However, there are also Section 40 Interviews. These are cases where we feel the Society may need to intervene to protect client money, where the CPSC feels the only proper action is likely to be to remove a solicitor’s practising certificate. The interview offers the solicitor one last chance to explain why they should be allowed to keep their practising certificate.

Sometimes the panel recommends that the certificate should not be withdrawn, but in other cases, we feel the risk of loss of client money is just too high and the interests of clients and the profession are best served by the removal of the certificate.

In our discussions and both types of interviews, we try to understand what has gone wrong in the firm and what the prospects of rectifying it truly are. The most satisfying cases are where we feel the solicitor has understood what went wrong and how it can be fixed. In those cases, we usually ask Financial Compliance to schedule another inspection within a year just to check that all is then well. However, if that outcome does not seem possible then we must move to protect the clients’ money by stopping the solicitor from practising.

We are not involved in the abstruse matters of law firm accounting (the Financial Compliance team deal with that). We are involved in dealing with people (primarily solicitors) and their problems. It is definitely a customer-facing role and as a (retired) Customer Service Manager I find this aspect uses a lot of the skills I acquired in my working life. A financial background is not essential.

The sub-committee also looks after the Client Protection Fund but happily at present that is only a small part of the sub-committee’s work.

So, what do I get out of being a committee member? In the words of Miss World contestants, I get to travel and meet people. Alternative answer – having been based in Edinburgh for most of my working life it gives me the opportunity to travel back fairly often and meet friends as well as keeping my brain ticking over. It also makes a change from playing online Scrabble, although I’m still happy to take anyone on!

The Client Protection Sub-Committee and a variety of other committees are currently recruiting for members. You can find out more about our committees on our website.