Responding to the SLCC
Over the coming months, the Law Society of Scotland and the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission will be working together to highlight the impact of delays and failures in compliance with statutory requests for information.
Engaging with the complaints process is an important part of being a solicitor. It helps maintain standards in the profession and protects public confidence.
The effectiveness of the complaints system depends on solicitors and firms responding to requests for information and meeting the deadlines set out in law. This applies equally to requests from the Society and the SLCC. Both organisations have a statutory responsibility to obtain the information required to investigate complaints properly and determine the appropriate next steps.
Benefits of prompt cooperation
It is also in solicitors’ own best interests to cooperate promptly. Responding quickly allows the SLCC to move the investigation forward without unnecessary delay, avoids the risk of escalation, and reduces the cost of the investigation. Early cooperation usually results in a smoother, more efficient process and can help bring matters to a close more quickly and proportionately.
Consequences of failing to engage
Not engaging, or delaying engaging, is likely to lead to regulatory action being taken against the solicitor. The SLCC has powers to enforce the production of information through the courts. This has resulted in adverse awards of expenses being made against solicitors and, in serious cases, contempt of court proceedings.
The matter can also be referred to the Society’s Complaints & Oversight Sub‑Committee to decide whether to raise a conduct complaint. This is in addition to any complaint about the delay raised by the complainers adversely impacted by the solicitor’s failure to engage with the SLCC and the complaints process.
The Society’s Professional Conduct Sub-Committees and the Scottish Solicitors’ Discipline Tribunal have held that failures to respond to communications about complaints or requests for information or files are sufficiently serious to amount to professional misconduct, even if the original complaint itself does not. Failures like this can and are upheld, resulting in censures, fines and restrictions for solicitors.
Most solicitors engage constructively, but in more than a quarter of cases information is provided late or not at all. This delays outcomes, increases costs, and places unnecessary strain on the system. That is in no one’s interests
Recent reforms agreed by the Scottish Parliament aim to make the complaints process simpler and more efficient. However, regardless of the framework in place, all solicitors are asked to engage promptly and constructively with the process and to respond fully to requests for information to ensure complaints are handled fairly, thoroughly, and without unnecessary delay.