Newsletter – December 2022

From the CEO

Following a consultation earlier this year, we have now received approval from our oversight regulator (the Legal Services Board) to make changes to our Disciplinary Rules and Procedures. Although the changes are relatively minor, they will require Costs Lawyers to make adjustments to their internal complaints procedures. The Legal Ombudsman is also making changes that will affect your complaints procedure, so we have aligned our timings to ensure you only need to amend your procedure once. You can start getting ready now, ahead of the joint compliance deadline in April.

The CLSB’s Disciplinary Rules and Procedures (DR&P) establish the processes to be followed when we receive information indicating that a Costs Lawyer might have breached our rules. The DR&P were last updated in May 2020 following a detailed review. At that time, we committed to assessing the effectiveness of the new DR&P two years after implementation. That assessment was carried out in 2022, and we identified several changes that could be made to better align our processes with those of the Legal Ombudsman.

The Legal Ombudsman also reviewed its own Scheme Rules this year and decided to make a number of changes. You can read more about those changes in the “Spotlight on…” section of this newsletter, where the Chief Ombudsman, Paul McFadden, explains the upcoming amendments and their intended impact. Like the changes to the DR&P, the amendments to the Scheme Rules will also have an impact on Costs Lawyers’ internal complaints procedures.

Both sets of changes – to the DR&P and the Scheme Rules – will come into force on 1 April 2023. We have aligned our timing with the Legal Ombudsman’s to ensure that Costs Lawyers only need to update their complaints procedures once.

The main amendments you will need to make to your complaints procedure relate to:

  • The time limit for clients to refer complaints to the Legal Ombudsman. This will decrease from six years to one year.
  •  The need for clients to exhaust your internal complaints procedure before they can escalate a complaint to the CLSB about your conduct.

This will also be a good opportunity to ensure that contact details for the CLSB and Legal Ombudsman in your complaints procedure are up to date. As a reminder, the CLSB changed its address earlier this year to: PO Box 4336, Manchester M61 0BW.

We will be sending further communications to Costs Lawyers in the new year about the changes that are required, along with an updated version of our model complaints procedure. If you have any questions or concerns in the meantime, please contact us.

Kate Wellington

CEO

Regulatory News

Please complete the 2022 diversity survey

If you didn’t complete our 2022 diversity survey when you renewed your practising certificate, please do so by 31 December 2022, after which the survey will close. You can access the survey here.

For this year’s survey, we are focusing on social mobility. The survey asks about your socio-economic background in a way that facilitates analysis across different regions, genders, age groups and levels of progression. Ultimately, we are interested in the extent to which the Costs Lawyer profession offers a route into law for those from socially diverse backgrounds.

Practising certificate renewals

We have now received applications for a 2023 practising certificate from the vast majority of Costs Lawyers. If you have not yet applied, or there are aspects of your application that remain outstanding, please complete the process as soon as possible to ensure you remain on the Register of Costs Lawyers next year.

If you have any feedback on the application process for future years, please get in touch. We are continually making improvements to the web forms based on your comments and ideas.

Holiday period office closure

Our office will be closed from 5pm on Thursday 22 December 2022 to Monday 2 January 2023 for the holiday period, other than for urgent enquiries. We will reopen on Tuesday 3 January.

If you have an urgent enquiry during this period, please send it by email with the word “URGENT” in the subject line. Urgent matters might include, for example, a query or complaint that poses a serious and immediate risk to a client or the public. Non-urgent email and phone enquiries, including enquiries relating to 2023 practising certificates, will be dealt with as soon as possible after 3 January.

Spotlight on… changes to the Legal Ombudsman’s Scheme Rules

In this newsletter, we turn our spotlight on upcoming changes to the rules that govern how the Legal Ombudsman handles complaints. Paul McFadden, Chief Ombudsman, explains the changes and how they could impact you.

“The new Scheme Rules will go live on 1 April 2023. There are three key areas for change, alongside several additional minor technical changes. We want to make sure that Costs Lawyers know about these changes now, so you can start to consider any consequential amendments that will be needed to your own complaint handling processes, including the terms of your internal complaints procedure.”

Read More

Up and Coming…

Expect more from us shortly on:

  • Feedback and data from 2023 practising certificate renewals
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