Insights
The client, the retainer and the complaint that was coming
Most complaints begin as silence. The client who has not heard for six weeks, the second call that went unreturned, the letter of engagement that never mentioned the right to cancel, the joint clients whose interests parted without anyone saying so. By the time the complaint arrives it is a year old, and the file shows a firm that meant well and wrote nothing down.
The articles below take the retainer from the first meeting to the last letter. They deal with what the client must be told and when, what happens when the client dies or stops instructing, what leaves the building and by which route, and how a subject access request or a request for the whole file is answered. Several show how the temper of a client's own messages, read overnight, starts the complaints procedure before the complaint does.
Fourteen articles, newest first. All the writing.
The client who stopped hearing from you
Poor communication is the single most common reason clients complain about their solicitors, and the files that produce it are the quiet ones no one is watching.
The email that was already a complaint
A dissatisfied client tells you weeks before the complaint form arrives, in their own correspondence, and the reply that goes out next decides which way it turns.
The client you never saw on their own
Capacity is presumed, specific to the decision and specific to the day, and the note written at the time is the only evidence that survives.
The right to cancel nobody mentioned
Retainers signed in a client's front room or agreed wholly by telephone carry a fourteen day right to cancel, and few files record whether the notice went out.
The interpreter nobody booked
A hearing goes off because nobody booked an interpreter, and the file never recorded that the client needed one.
The client you stopped acting for
Work stops on a matter months before anyone writes to the client, and the court record, the diary and the client account carry on as though the firm is still acting.
The joint retainer that stopped being joint
Two clients who wanted the same thing in March do not always want it in August, and the conflict check that cleared the file at the door does not run again.
The client who died before the matter ended
The retainer ends at the moment of death, and the letters, the statements and the ledger entries carry on because nothing in the system knows.
The client who asked you to email everything
A client asking for everything by email is making a request, and the firm still decides what leaves the building and by what route.
The letter asking for everything on the file
A former client asks for everything you hold about them. The month runs from the day the request lands anywhere in the firm, not the day you notice it.
The call your client made twice
A message taken at reception rarely reaches the matter file, so the time goes unbilled and nobody can show what was said when the client asks eighteen months later.
The documents deleted before anyone asked for them
A dispute recorded in March and proceedings issued in November, with the client's mail system deleting on a rolling cycle throughout. The instruction has to name the systems.
The witness statement that left the building
A paralegal pastes a draft statement into a free chatbot to tidy the grammar, and the firm has no record it happened. What has to be in place before AI touches client papers.
The introducer the client was never told about
Referral arrangements are signed once and reviewed never, leaving a firm unable to show that a client was ever told what the introduction was worth.
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