CONSUMER JUSTICE: THE LEGAL PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1989.tb02624.x |
| Date | 01 September 1989 |
| Author | A. D. Dugdale |
| Published date | 01 September 1989 |
REVIEW
ARTICLE
CONSUMER JUSTICE:
THE
LEGAL PROFESSION AND
THE
PUBLIC INTEREST
ORDINARY
JUSTICE.
LEGAL SERVICES
AND
THE
COURTS
IN
ENGLAND
AND
WALES: A CONSUMER VIEW. The National Consumer Council.
[London: HMSO. 1989 vi
+
392pp. (including index). €11.95
paperback
.]
ORDINARY
Justice
is the National Consumer Council’s timely contri-
bution
to
the legal services debate. Written before the publication
of
the Green Papers, but published with an update commenting on
them,
Ordinary
Jusrice
lends support to many
of
the radical reforms
being proposed by the Lord Chancellor’s Department. It favours
allowing building societies to provide conveyancing services, believ-
ing that a duty to warn clients of potential conflicts
of
interests
coupled with monitoring by the Director General
of
Fair Trading will
provide sufficient protection for the consumer. In language reminis-
cent
of
the Green Paper, it supports the development
of
mixed prac-
tices,
e.g.
of
lawyers and accountants, arguing that consumers must
be
given the choice and that small, local solicitors will simply have to
“prove their worth in a competitive market” or go under. “Competi-
tive edge” is also invoked as the basis on which the Bar’s survival
must depend. Taking a slightly more cautious approach than the
Green Papers,
Ordinary
Justice
recommends that, provided solicitors
show they are able to cope with the demands
of
personal injury advo-
cacy in the County Court when the higher limits are introduced,
“restrictions on them appearing in the high court and appeal court
should be relaxed.” The future
of
the independent Bar will then
depend upon it being able to offer a better service. Competition
within the Bar itself should be promoted by allowing chambers to
operate as partnerships
if
they wish. The arguments against con-
tingent
fees
are raised and rejected, as they were in the Green
Papers. But here
Ordinary
Justice
goes further, pointing out that
although the plaintiff will no longer fear paying his own costs under a
contingency
fee
system, he will still face the prospect
of
paying the
defendent’s costs if he loses. The real solution, it is argued, lies in a
mutual fund scheme along the lines proposed many years ago by
JUSTICE.
Both sets
of
proposals recommend improved training, more special-
isation, freer advertising, the publication
of
more written pro-
fessional standards and revamped complaints procedures. But
Ordinary
Justice
is not another version
of
the Green Papers. The
superficial resemblances hide a fundamental difference in approach.
The Green Paper is narrow in scope. It examines the organisation
of
the legal profession rather than that
of
legal services as a whole. It
examines the work of the profession but not that
of
the courts
722
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