Third party complaints feature in SLCC's latest case summaries

Awards to complainers affected by the inadequate professional service of another person's solicitors are included among the latest illustrative case summaries (for January-March 2016), released today by the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission.

The 24 cases, where a complaint was upheld in whole or in part, along with four where it was not, include four arising from the same executry in which, over a period of approximately 20 months, the practitioner completely ignored 12 separate pieces of correspondence sent by the complainers’ own solicitors. The SLCC's determination committee considered that this represented a poor service to the practitioner’s own client, and that the impact on the four separate complainers merited an award for inconvenience, stress and actual loss in each case, along with a complaints levy.

In another case the complaint was brought against an opponent's solicitor in a litigation. The complaint was that the solicitor and firm had failed to act in the best interests of their client by unduly delaying the conclusion of the dispute for over two years. The committee decided that there had been various delays in progressing matters which represented an inadequate level of service to the solicitor’s own client – who may or may not have complained – and that this had adversely impacted on the complainer. The committee ordered the firm to pay compensation to the complainer of level 4 (£1,000-£4,999) for actual loss, and band B (£151-750) for inconvenience and distress, along with a complaints levy.

David Buchanan-Cook, head of oversight at the SLCC, commented in this month's client relations managers' newsletter: "The lesson to learn is that even if your own client isn’t particularly concerned about a delayed outcome, or for natural reasons just isn’t around any more, any element of inadequate service could be put under the spotlight by someone else… anyone, in fact, who may have been badly affected by it."

He added: "Like all complaints, under the prematurity provisions, we expect those from third parties to be investigated at first tier by practitioners. If something has gone wrong, that’s your opportunity to put it right. Although these type of complaints may need to be treated differently from a complaint from your own client, and you may want to have a separate process for dealing with them to take into account aspects such as confidentiality, they shouldn’t be considered irrelevant. And they should never be ignored."

Click here to view all the decision summaries.

• The proposed change to the time limit for accepting complaints – from one year to three years – which the SLCC had aimed to implement from 1 July 2016 has been delayed pending the outcome of an appeal to the Court of Session. It is expect that the time limit will now be reviewed later this year.