Solicitors drinking in the last chance saloon over client bills

The profession must police itself or face independent monitoring warns Stephen Ward

Clients who go to a solicitor for advice are often not warned that they are running up huge bills, the Government's legal watchdog complained last week.

The Solicitors Complaints Bureau, which is run by the the Law Society, ought to police the profession's bills more strictly, Michael Barnes, the Legal Services Ombudsman, said. He described the current attempts to reform the bureau as the last chance for solicitors to avoid having an independent complaints body.

Two weeks ago, a survey by the solicitors' professional body, the Law Society, showed that nearly a third of clients were given no advance information on costs.

Mr Barnes, who acts as the final complaints backstop for alleged poor work by lawyers, pointed out that solicitors charged by the hour, a system which gave them no incentive to deal with cases efficiently or quickly.

In one case in his fourth annual report, published last week, an electrician went to a solicitor trying to recover a bad debt of pounds 1,500 from a customer, and was told the lawsuit might cost him that much to fight. Three years later, his solicitors told him he had run up a pounds 4,000 bill, and in any case he should give up because the defendant had no money.

In another case a builder trying to recover pounds 9,800 lost his case and faced final costs of pounds 26,000.

"I consider the bureau [which is funded by the solicitors] ought to be able to take more effective action," he said. "There are professional guidelines to solicitors telling them they that should give clients the best information possible early on about likely costs, that privately paying clients should be informed every six months of the approximate amount of costs to date and that, in all matters, solicitors should consider with clients whether the likely outcome will justify the risk or expense involved."

But the guidelines, only introduced in 1986, are not mandatory. Dissatisfied clients have to appeal to the bureau that they have not received a professional service. Mr Barnes says: "In any given case, there is still scope for an element of subjective judgement ... I sometimes find myself taking a different view from the bureau."

The latest Ombudsman's survey showed a rising tide of complaints against solicitors and barristers being referred to him, up 30 per cent to 1,598. Of the 839 investigations he completed during 1994, solicitors were ordered to pay compensation in 54 cases, and the bureau to pay compensation in 47 cases. The bureau was criticised or asked to reconsider in a further 155 cases.

* Fourth Annual Report of the Legal Services Ombudsman, HMSO pounds 8.15.