The Gazette 1993

GAZETTE

NW JUNE 1993

• What are the characteristics of this service from the client's viewpoint?

disloyalty, since there was an over supply of solicitors and therefore a great deal of competition within the profession for available business. Another factor contributing to the drive towards quality, he said, was the cost of quality failure, be it through j increased professional indemnity j premiums, higher contributions to the Compensation Fund or time that had to be spent rectifying mistakes or failure to deal properly with clients. Í Andrew Lockley described a number of initiatives which the Law Society of England and Wales had taken, including the introduction of rule 15 on client care which obliged each firm to have an in-house procedure for dealing with complaints. He told delegates that compliance with rule 15 was not, as yet, universal. While most firms said they had an internal complaints procedure they did not tell their clients about it. On the other hand, some firms had gone further than rule 15 and had established their own quality standards such as returning calls within one day. The Law Society actively encouraged the client care approach. Rule 15 on client care

had now obtained the British quality standard BS7570. In his view, BS5750 was essentially "common sense written down". However, it tended to be process-orientated rather than people- orientated and it had required adjustments for its application to legal services which the Law Society of England and Wales had agreed with the British Standards Institute. The debate was now moving on into the area of total quality management (TQM) which was a philosophy of continuous improvement and was more orientated towards people. Andrew Lockley said the approach of TQM was to assess the quality of work consistently while it was being done rather than applying quality control after the event which was far less satisfactory. Andrew Lockley explained how the Law Society of England and Wales had responded to the desire of the bulk of the profession to be given guidance standards on practice management. The Society had also been stirred into this by the Legal Aid Board because the Board was insisting on certain quality standards being met before it would franchise legal aid work to a firm. It was an important principle for the Law Society of England and Wales Practice Management Standards

• What personnel, facilities, capacity, time, reliability, responsiveness, comfort, systems, environment, accuracy, cost effectiveness do you provide to deliver that service?

• What does the client expect? What should the client get?

• Is the client nervous, uncertain or worried about what he wants? Does he want reassurance, consistent satisfaction, improvement, efficiency, courtesy, definitive action, cost optimisation?

• Is there a complaints procedure?

• Is there in essence a quality response? Is there a consistent

quality response from all personnel and are your facilities geared to it?"

Robert Pierse said that in order to provide quality service, the service given to clients must be a total service which, by its features and characteristics, was able to satisfy fully the stated and implied needs of clients. The system by which this was achieved must combine an input from personnel with structures, responsibilities, procedures, processes and resources. Andrew Lockley, Director of the Legal Practice Directorate of the Law Society of England and Wales, said the j move towards quality in the solicitors' profession in England and Wales had been customer-driven. The large buyers of legal services such as the Legal Aid Board, insurance companies and local authorities were exercising their buying muscle and were insisting on quality standards. Furthermore, over 20,000 firms in the UK had acquired the British quality standard BS5750 and they in turn wanted to do i business with others who had acquired I the standard, including solicitors. There was also an element of self interest in that some solicitors' firms viewed it as a hedge against client Customer-driven quality

i

Andrew Lockley said that seven solicitors firms in England and Wales

In a relaxed mood at the Annual Conference were l-r: Glenys Richardson and Norman Richardson, Lees Lloyd Whitley, Liverpool, England; David Thomas, Lees, Lloyd Whitley; Jane Bibby; and David Keating, Smith & Graham, Hartlepool, England.

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