Victims of the Legal Profession / Victims of Irish Solicitors Society

The Irish Law Society makes judgements ab initio on what cases/issues go through to the Complaints Committee which favour (of course - it is their professional body!) the position of its members.
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This is absolutely untrue. Hand on heart, I can say that the Law Society does not favour its members. In fact you will find that many of its members, myself included, feel it goes too far in the other direction. But even if that were the case, if you have a case of professional negligence against a solicitor, you do not need to make a complaint to the law society at all, you have the right to pursue that solicitor in the courts for compensation.
 
Vanilla - When I contributed my limited anecdotal perspective on this issue (through endorsing wider dissemination of information about good/bad/indifferent legal services through websites etc., which I endorse) I hadn't intended to generate a 'ding-dong' argument, and certainly do not wish to 'bash' anyone including solicitors. I have been at pains to say in several contexts that most solicitors work well in the best interests of their clients.

I had alarming experiences as a Joint Executrice trying to negotiate through the probate of my late mother's estate handicapped by trenchant non-co-operation and countermanding of every move forward and every instruction by the other Executrice (my estranged sister) combined with total incompetence and communication failure at every stage of the solicitor's role. Briefly, my mother's solicitor arranged for self and sib to meet with him to give a joint instruction. This clarity did not suit sib, who had been decanting funds out of our mother's account and taken over her post-office book (no Power of Attorney, just did it with a little help from unscrupulous others who stood to gain financially also). So sib shifted the probate to another solicitor - without consultation or agreement with me.

I was absolutely appalled to learn that this was permitted. That was my epiphany experience of the pitfalls of legal processes. My first conversation with Solicitor B (the one my sister retained for the probate and sale of the family home) was to (a) express my concerns that my sibling was avoiding setting down an agreed instruction at the outset and (b) requiring clarification from Solicitor B whether she was acting solely for my sibling or if the was acting for the estate (i.e. my late mother).

This was not clarified. As mistake after mistake emerged (omission of a substantial account from the submission to the Revenue which I only spotted because an old bank statement of my mother's had accidentally come into my possession) I got increasingly concerned that my best interests were not being served........though Solicitor B (who is a pleasant and well-meaning woman who I liked personally) continually assured me she was acting for both of us.

When I summarised this situation to The Irish Law Society their prompt courteous response informed me if I wished to lodge a rival application to take out grant of probate an application to Court might be necessary, and ends with "The Law society is not permitted to give advice and we are not in a position to assist further".

Things went from bad to worse and over a year later I was forced to relinquish the family home which I was 'buying-out' my sister's half-interest in. In January this year I lost £1,780 in the transfer of my inheritance from the estate account to my UK bank because the solicitor had e-mailed me just prior to Christmas that X K euros" were about to be transferred, then shut her office until after the New Year. I was advised by my bank here that in their view the exchange had peaked and I should "fix" the rate. I did so. In early January the funds arrived already converted into sterling! The good rate of exchange had held (the Euro was worth 70p I seem to remember). Because they were expecting Euro which did not materialise I had broken my contract and had to pay £2K. I contacted the solicitor to express myself and was told with complete indifference that it was "nothing to do with her".

Today I am at home trying to sort out by phone, fax and e-mail the provinance and what the **** to do with a euro-cheque for an interim dividend on shares left by my mother which I have had no communication whatsoever about from the solicitor and which are payable to "Admin (my late mother's name) Deceased.

It is galling to say the least that however many 'personal anecdotes' of this kind, and experiences that leave people depleted in time, money and energy, there is nothing I can do about it unless I retain another solicitor! My experience is not an isolated one. The point I am labouring is it is actually in the interests of the legal profession for these kinds of situations to occur - again and again and again!
 
Marie you seem to have had a bad experience.

You say there is nothing you can do without retaining another solicitor- but this is not true. You could have lodged a rival application personally. You have a right of audience in any court. You could still make a complaint if you feel the solicitor was negligent. You could sue the solicitor for professional negligence. You don't need a solicitor for any of that. Of course I appreciate that you may WANT a solicitor for their expertise and knowledge. But that is a different issue. As far as I am aware, every legal system in the world is pretty much similar in that you have a better chance of success if you employ an expert. Not just every legal system indeed, but every profession. I've said it before, but just to illustrate, you could do your accounts yourself, but an accountant is the expert. Does that make the accountancy profession bad as a whole? There is a free legal aid system in this country for some civil cases, and for mainly family law matters. There is a system of legal aid for criminal matters. Many firms do pro bono work. But the vast majority of solicitors are trained professionals running a business (hopefully ) for profit. Its not a charity, its a business. So yes, we will pick and choose what cases will be profitable. And yes, of course, we will charge. Finally you say ' it is in the interests of the legal profession for these kinds of situation to occur..' - what do you mean by this? That it is in the interests of solicitors for their colleagues to be negligent? That makes no sense to me. You might clarify.
 
Vanilla - The information in this single e-mail is more than I received over two years and 15.5K worth of probate..........but I have just learned this now.

I had been trying to make the point that the lay public relates to the legal profession/professionals from a position of dependency in the area of probate. They have been bereaved, or are executing the estate of someone who has died. As with medical emergency or serious terminal illness the dependant relationship with legal professionals carries considerable emotional charge. As in the case of questions of medical competence whilst independent outsiders can point to 'the free market' and 'choice' it is not quite so simple for those involved. If your life and relationships rarely bring you into contact with solicitors, barristers the law or the courts you simply do not know what is the norm, what to expect, or what the processes are!! The suggestion that the onus is on the bereaved family/executor brush up on their knowledge of law and go for the D.I.Y. option or "shop around for another solicitor" fails to recognise the dependency of the legally-naive public on what is (perceived to be) expert knowledge of the solicitor as ethical professional. I know now that there is an option for a family or executor to do the probate themselves. I did not know at the time because I had no prior experience and did not know what to expect...........and I suspect that is the situation for most executors/bereaved families and is borne out by questions on AAM. If the legal profession is committed to modernising away from a relationship based on "professional ethics", is open to "market forces" and wishes to engage in a more realistic manner with its "customers" as opposed to clients then it should initiate some market research on client needs and affordability and produce product-information on par with that of financial institutions and other competitive businesses. Educated customers with realistic expectations based on realistic knowledge of the service and its cost would result. This is far from clear at present, masked as it is behind arcane language of "retaining" "client" "executor" etc.

My last point was inelegantly put. I meant if a solicitor's work is not competent or adequate there is no choice but retain another to take the matter to the Courts. I understood that to be the case prior to your clarifying information.
 
very interesting discussion... In my profession, solicitors tend to be reviled due to their tardiness and or lack of transparancy in arrangements to pay for work done. Most of us now will not release a report to solicitors without being paid upfront for it; as for getting paid for standing by or appearing in a court case as a witness, I find myself having to phone at regular intervals to have any chance of being paid or of getting any information whatsoever. Often it's only months later that I find out that the costs have gone to the Taxing Master, in which case they are inevitably slashed; this despite my putting in writing that I should be informed if this should happen, so that I can defend the fees charged (I'd always have a record of the time I'd put into a case). It seems to me, that like certain other professions, communication is not a priority -even amoungst the good ones! (There are a few!)
 
Gordanus,

The costs awarded on taxation are awarded to the litigant; The costs awarded should enable them to pay your bill if the taxing master feels that the entire bill was reasonably incurred by the litigant. However, this has no bearing on the litigant's obligation to you to discharge your agreed fee.

The situation might be otherwise if it is a term of your contract with the litigant through their solicitor that you will accept a smaller fee if so taxed - but this is uncommon.
 
Marie,

"Clients of any professional person are often at a disadvantage because the professional person has a great deal more information, experience and expertise in the service area.
This gap, which is unavoidable, is known as “information asymmetry”. This exists in the context of solicitors also because of the fact that solicitors are specialists in their chosen field. A client is therefore, at times, at a disadvantage to the solicitor in terms of information and experience with which to assess the price and quality of the services the
solicitor provides. This “information asymmetry” arises because many legal services are complex and are infrequently needed by most clients."

This is an excerpt from Law Society submission to the Competition Authority. Not a lot of comfort, but I thought you might like to know that the profession itself is exercised by the issue you have raised.
 
MOB - This is the burning issue between all specialisms and communities of expertise at the present time. Thankfully there is a current shift in emphasis from the knowledge-and-skills base of experts to making their knowledge or service understandable (consultant paediatricians were one of the first groups to bring in mentors from outside their profession to address perceived difficulties of communicating with child-patients). It is gratifying the Irish legal profession are aware and prepared to embrace the needed changes.
 
"Information Asymmetry"? Let me guess - they need to leverage the synergy that all stakeholders bring to the table in order to mitigate this problem...?
 
Clubman, your perspective as a relatively well educated consumer of services (and your apparently cynical view of client care "jargon") is not very representative of the general public. (aside - I must admit to being a bit of a jargon hater myself). Information asymmetry is a very real issue. As all lawyer-bashers will agree, it can prevent clients from getting value for money, but the other side of this is that it also prevent clients from appreciating when they are getting value.

I know it is just anecdotal, but I just yesterday had a discussion with a builder client who is selling a small development of three or four houses. My fee for the sale of each house is €1700 plus V.A.T., but there was a lot of extra work in this estate. I explained to the client that I would not recoup this extra "set-up" type work over just three house sales, and I would have to give him a top-up bill. He initially balked at the notion, but then I went through it with him, explained that the setting up of the estate development had taken a lot of work and offered to send over the timesheets.

He did acknowledge that if I had simply charged him (say) €2,200 per house sale, he would probably have paid it without grumbling. That would constitute my taking advantage of an information asymmetry, (and would leave me in a position to take unfair advantage when he goes to build 30 houses, but is not a sustainable business model). I could have done this and achieved the same financial result, but it would have lacked transparency. Instead I now have a client who understands what the work costs and what he is paying for. Solicitors (and other professionals) have nothing at all to fear from having well informed clients.

Marie,

the Irish legal profession is certainly aware of this issue. I think it might be stretching it to say that we are "prepared to embrace the needed changes". Nobody likes change; solicitors recognise that we live in changing times, and that we need to change with them. Some of us embrace change, some are resigned to it; some are reluctant to dispense with the trusty old quill pen. This is not unique to the Irish legal profession. For example, lawyers worldwide are identified as the main group which still regularly dictates emails for secretaries to type.
 
MOB said:
Clubman, ... your apparently cynical view of client care "jargon" ... is not very representative of the general public.
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I reckon that my cynicism in the face of business jargon and management speak is quite representative of the general public actually. Just look at the , the "Jargon Watch" slot on RTÉ Radio's [broken link removed] (they even have a song about business jargon) and the "Beast of Business" slot on Newstalk's [broken link removed] programme for example.
 
In response to the point about arcane language raised by MOB and responded above by ClubMan nothing will be accomplished or changed if the Irish legal profession settle for the reductionism of what is called 'plain English'. The deeper issue is expressed in a number of posts from solicitors above and it is this. That solicitors now conduct themselves as 'a business' and quote 'the market' whilst those who retain/consult them still perceive legal people to be professionals!.........my definition of which is "ownership of esoteric knowledge which will be used to benefit the other, not the self".

I disagree, incidentally, with your view MOB that Irish solicitors are no worse than those elsewhere in Europe. The root of this is I believe our colonial past, where law was English law over against Brehon law. The palimpsists of that structure and attitude persists still leading to the situation in Ireland particularly where the legal profession are simultaneously deified and reified, scorned irrationally whilst also being accorded an unwarranted amount of power, control and social status. Their current connection with government tribunals and state-level investigations reinforces this ambivalence in the public mind.

Real change in the Irish legal profession - particularly solicitors - would entail profound changes in the mindset of both practitioners and public. Language shifts in response to structural shifts in institutions, it does not lead it. Language-led change is propaganda.
 
postscript...........above, I meant to type "deified and vilified" not "deified and reified".
 
Marie said:
That solicitors now conduct themselves as 'a business' and quote 'the market' ...
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The problem with this is we [broken link removed] that free market forces are emasculated in this context since entry into the legal field is controlled by monopolistic entities.
 
"I reckon that my cynicism in the face of business jargon and management speak is quite representative of the general public actually."

Nope, absolutely not. It is representative of your relatively affluent, relatively well educated, relatively young peer group.
 
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