11th April 2016
Subsection (1) provides that a complaint does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Solicitors Complaints Committee unless the complainant has first used the respondent’s in-house complaints procedure (defined in subsection (2)).
Subsection (3) requires that the Solicitors Complaints Committee must make rules outlining circumstances where a complainant may proceed directly to the Solicitors Complaints Committee without firstly using the in-house procedure. It will be a matter for the Complaints Committee to determine such circumstances, which could be, for example, where the relationship with the solicitor has completely broken down that would render this type of process unworkable.