Solicitors ‘ignore Law Society probes’

MORE than half the solicitors subjected to an official hearing by the independent adjudicator of the Law Society last year had ignored investigations by their own professional body.

Yesterday's annual report from the Adjudicator, Eamon Condon, showed that 115 out of 211 solicitors requested to attend a hearing had failed to respond to the Law Society following the lodging of an original complaint against them.

The adjudicator claimed he was "somewhat disappointed" that many solicitors had failed to attend such hearings without a proper excuse.

While some solicitors were overtly challenging the authority of the Law Society to investigate complaints against them, Mr Condon said he believed others had failed to respond as a result of severe stress.

However, the Law Society claimed the problem should be minimised in future as it had recently acquired new powers under the Solicitors Amendment Act 2002 to compel its members to assist with their inquiries into complaints.

Overall, there was a slight increase in the total number of complaints last year. The report covers the period from September 2002 to August 2003 and records a total of 1,095 admissible complaints an increase of 56 on the previous period.

The office of the adjudicator was established in 1997 in order to allow members of the public access to an independent forum if they were dissatisfied with the manner in which the Law Society handled their initial complaint.

One notable feature of the latest report is the high number of complaints made by other solicitors against their colleagues. Complaints by just 80 solicitors accounted for 327 individual cases, around 30% of the total. Mr Condon said the ongoing issue surrounding multiple complaints against certain solicitors was "really unacceptable".

Director general of the Law Society Ken Murphy said new powers, which the professional body had acquired during the period covered by the adjudicator's report, should result in a reduction of such complaints this year. These include the society's right to impose a maximum fine of 3,000 on a solicitor to cover the cost of the inquiry as a preliminary sanction.

Last year, 562 allegations of misconduct were made around half of them made by other solicitors against the failure by their professional colleagues to hand over documentation or fulfil undertakings.

Overall, 49 complaints out of a total of 763 cases finalised last year were upheld by the adjudicator. A further 325 cases were resolved. The Law Society referred 21 cases onwards to the Disciplinary Tribunal of the High Court.

Commenting on the report, Mr Condon said he was not concerned by the increase in the number of complaints as the Law Society had worked hard over the past year to publicise the mechanisms for making complaints against lawyers.

He also welcomed a discernible improvement in the speed and quality with which complaints were addressed, saying that almost 80% of all complaints were dealt with within 90 days.

Although there were 88 complaints about overcharging last year, the adjudicator said the issue should really be "obliterated" as solicitors were now legally obliged to provide clients with information on fees.

Launching the report, Justice Minister Michael McDowell said existing constraints which prevented the Law Society from investigating complaints relating to solicitors acting in family law cases would be addressed in the new Court Bill, which was before the Oireachtas.