With major changes ahead the Law Society cannot afford to be complacent in its approach to complaints handling, says Zahida Manzoor
The service provided by the Law Society's complaints handling arm—the Legal Complaints Service (LCS) and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)—to consumers and the profession has improved over the last three years. This is in the large part the result of them working to the targets that I set and improvement plans I have required. More acknowledgement letters are now sent within five working days, more consumers are receiving regular updates on how their case is progressing, and more complaints are dealt with (and closed) in under a year. This is good news for the consumer—but importantly also for the profession who pays for this service.
But let's get down to the basics. It is hard to ignore that many of the improvements have been in administrative processes; those that users would rightly expect from any profession's complaint handling organisation. This “process focus” was in part the result of the low level of service the Law Society was providing on complaints in 2004 and against
