Daming He’s experience of the legal regulators

The unsuccessful complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, referred by her to the Victorian Bar, took more than 5 months to complete. Then the Law Institute complaint went on for about 2 months. The Legal Profession Tribunal made a decision 10 months later, the Full Legal Profession Tribunal 3 months later again. The Court of Appeal process took two and a quarter years.

Mr He’s complaint to the Law Institute was that the settlement advice was negligent, the solicitors negligently failed to claim loss of earnings occasioned by the first adjournment, and the solicitors had misled him by asserting that he should pay the costs of the third adjournment occasioned by the no-show of the expert witness.

The Law Institute ignored his complaint about misconduct without investigating it, despite having a statutory duty to do so. They appear to have sat on the pecuniary loss dispute resolution request for over a week before even sending it over to Mr He’s former lawyers: [25]. There was a desultory exchange of correspondence: the lawyers promptly responded to the complaint by saying they had not charged fees but said nothing else in answer to the complaint [26]. One must have some sympathy for them, since Bakhazi had by then disappeared off the face of the earth, probably not a good look for a firm defending a professional negligence claim. Mr He responded in writing, and the Law Insitute then called the lawyers for a chat. Do I detect sarcasm in the Court of Appeal’s comment that “As a result, Professional Standards concluded that ‘reasonable attempts had been made to settle the dispute'”?

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