Lawyer complaints system too complex, says outgoing chief

THE system for dealing with complaints against lawyers in Scotland is too complex, expensive and time-consuming – according to the outgoing chief executive of the body created to deal with legal complaints.

Rosemary Agnew leaves the top post at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) today to become Scotland’s new Information Commissioner.

And in an exclusive interview with The Scotsman, she launched a withering attack on the legislation that created the SLCC – and admitted that the body should be performing much better in the interests of those who use legal services in Scotland, and in the interests of the legal profession.

Both Ms Agnew and SLCC chairman Jane Irvine said the 2007 Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act was “too didactic and prescriptive” – and they remain “extremely frustrated at the level of service we provide to users”.

Ms Agnew makes a similar point: “We could do things much more efficiently if we had more freedom within the legislation that governs us. We find it a big constraint.”

She said the very detailed specifications for deciding whether to take in a complaint in the first place – and rule that it was not “frivolous, vexatious or without merit” was the biggest constraint.

“The language of the Act irritates people and upsets them,” said Ms Agnew. “Complaints can be life-changing issues, but the language of our Act makes us sound uncaring and we are not.

“The flipside is that if you admit a complaint, you are saying to a legal practitioner that it’s not totally without merit. That sets an expectation we will uphold it. And that isn’t necessarily true – it just means we are able to consider it.

“We have a very complicated set of eligibility tests to make a decision that something is ‘in’. That decision to keep it ‘in’ [or not] adds complexity, levels of expectation and cost.”

Ms Irvine said the Act could have been “hugely simpler” and suggests the complication arose because the Act had so many representations and amendments – and because the SLCC deals with complaints about legal service and has to refer conduct issues back to the Law Society or other professional body.

She said it was time to move on to a new phase for the SLCC, which started work in October 2008.

Ms Agnew said she thought the SLCC had done well in the circumstances: “Given all the constraints, we do some very good work; we have high standards, really good staff and investigators and a board which work really well. We also have a missed opportunity to get more out of the talent we have.”

Ms Irvine added: “People are getting their problems looked at. The frustration is the time, the effort and the cost it all takes.”