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Just 5% of all LSRA cases concern excessive costs

In its five years of operation, the Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA) has directed legal practitioners to pay a total of €256,996 in compensation to clients arising out of complaints.

It also directed legal practitioners to refund or waive a total of €213,479 in professional fees.

Complaints made to the LSRA by barristers about solicitors led to a total of €354,020 in unpaid barristers’ fees being recovered.

Today (30 October) marks five years of the LSRA’s independent handling of complaints about solicitors and barristers.

The five-year complaints data shows it received a total of 7,091 complaints since October 2019, while closing 5,724 complaints.

Of the 7,091 files, 6,857 complaints were made about solicitors and 234 about barristers.

The LSRA receives and investigates three types of complaints:

• Inadequate legal services,
• Excessive costs (overcharging), and
• Misconduct.

Of the complaints 4,317 (61%) were about alleged misconduct, while 2,019 (28%) related to legal services of an inadequate standard.

Misconduct

Just 318 complaints (5%) were of excessive costs (overcharging) while 437 were mixed complaints (6%), with a combination of misconduct, inadequate services, and excessive costs.

Of the 5,724 complaints closed in the five-year period:

• 2,727 complaints (47%) were inadmissible, 
• 1,335 complaints (23%) were resolved,
• 294 complaints (5%) were upheld,
• 385 complaints (7%) were not upheld,
• 98 complaints of alleged misconduct (2%) were referred by the LSRA to the separate Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal (LPDT) which, unlike the LSRA, can make findings of misconduct,
• 916 complaints (16%) were withdrawn, deferred or closed for other reasons.

The five-year statistics are included as part of the LSRA’s routine six-monthly complaints report, its second of 2024.

This is the LSRA’s tenth complaints report to date and covers the reporting period of 2 March-6 September this year.

Early resolution

LSRA chief executive Dr Brian Doherty said this morning: “A welcome trend that we document in today’s report is the fact that almost one in four of all complaints closed in the past five years were resolved between the parties with the assistance of the LSRA. 

“The successful early resolution of complaints is something we have repeatedly championed and it is heartening to see that such a significant number of complainants and legal practitioners have taken this message on board.

“For consumer complaints about poor services or overcharging, it is very often a much more satisfactory and speedy outcome that means both parties to the complaint do not have to go through the investigative process with their complaint being determined by the LSRA and either upheld with a sanction or not upheld.

“Legal practitioners and complainants alike who adopt a flexible and positive approach to complaints resolution both stand to benefit.”

However, LSRA enforcements had featured increasingly since the regulator took its first High Court proceedings in 2022, Dr Doherty said.

“It is of significant concern that the LSRA has to date been forced to apply to the High Court and been granted a total of 19 enforcement orders under section 90 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015.”

Comply

Dr Doherty said that such actions should be unnecessary, and the failure of legal practitioners to comply with regulator directions created unnecessary work, slowed down the complaints process, and created additional and unnecessary costs that were passed on to all legal practitioners through the LSRA annual levy.

“The LSRA once again urges all legal practitioners to be mindful of their professional responsibility to engage with the complaints process and to comply with any determinations and directions made,” he said.