Controversial plans to publish complaints against solicitors online have been shelved. In a long-awaited decision, the Legal Complaints Service (LCS) this week said it still favours the idea – but passed responsibility for any scheme to its successor body, which comes into being in 2010.

The body blamed practical problems for stopping the plan going ahead. Lack of resources and an outdated IT system would render the scheme unviable, the LCS board said. Meanwhile, with the LCS set to be wound down in 2010 to be replaced by the Office for Legal Complaints (OLC), the service said there was not enough time for it to tackle the project.

Plans for publishing complaints were originally proposed at the beginning of 2007. The LCS said that posting detailed information of upheld, adjudicated complaints on its website would provide transparency and openness, as well as be a useful information source for consumers selecting legal services.

Paper copies of complaints would have been available on request.

Although the scheme mirrored other transparency initiatives in public policy, such as publishing surgeons’ operative death rates online, it ran into opposition from both the profession and the Law Society.

The Society described the scheme as a ‘naming and shaming’ exercise that would have had ‘an unhelpful and damaging effect on the profession’. A better way to enhance client services would be by improving the way solicitors respond to complaints, it said.

Concerns from individual solicitors included:Despite such concerns, Professor Shamit Saggar, LCS board chair, said that leading consumer organisations, such as Which? and the National Consumer Council (now known as Consumer Focus) had backed the idea.

  • that publishing complaints would encourage firms to act defensively, driving up costs; and
  • that it would promote a compensation culture rather than a customer-focused culture within the profession.

‘We have looked to design a fair scheme,’ he said. ‘We are convinced publication would have brought benefits to consumers and solicitors through increased competition and more informed choice.’

Paul Marsh, Law Society President, said: ‘We remain committed to helping solicitors deal with their clients in the best possible way, drawing on the knowledge the LCS has about causes of complaints.’

Despite its decision the LCS said it still believes that complaints against solicitors should be published and that it will share its findings with the OLC when it is up and running.