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LCS to approach thousands of miners over fees

Published 04/05/2007

The Legal Complaints Service (LCS) is to canvas thousands of former miners directly to determine whether solicitors wrongly deducted fees from their compensation claims.

The LCS will write to claimants who suffered serious chest disease and vibration white-finger injuries, asking if they received poor service from their solicitor and offering to help recover fees if appropriate.

The government launched the compensation scheme, the biggest of its kind worldwide, in 1999. To date, £3.4 billion has been paid out in more than 760,000 claims. However, the scheme became mired in controversy after it emerged that some solicitors had deducted fees from miners’ awards – for mining unions or themselves – despite the fact the government had already paid solicitors’ costs.

LCS chief executive Deborah Evans said directly contacting claimants was a proactive move that would have been inconceivable when the LCS was still the complaints-handling arm of the Law Society.

She was confident the majority of the profession would support the initiative and added: ‘There was no way, as a consumer-focused organisation, we couldn’t reach out to help this vulnerable and distressed group.’

The LCS will initially contact claimants in just one parliamentary constituency, Rother Valley in Yorkshire, after the DTI expressed concerns over whether the LCS could meet a surge in enquiries.

The LCS plans to contact all miners eventually, but data protection issues mean the DTI must send the letter as it cannot share claimant details with a third party. The Gazette revealed in January that the LCS had requested access to the DTI’s database to contact claimants (see [2007] Gazette, 18 January, 1).

The move follows the publication of a highly critical report by Lord Lofthouse, an ex-miner, on how solicitors have handled claims.

Peter Williamson, chairman of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, said: ‘I am ashamed that solicitors whose costs are being met by the government should do such a thing. The SRA… is dealing robustly with those firms suspected of professional misconduct.’

Des Hudson, Law Society chief executive, said the majority of solicitors had done an excellent job but welcomed the SRA’s commitment to deal rigorously with the ‘small minority of solicitors whose conduct… has caused concern.’

This article has been reprinted with permission of the Claims Standards Council

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