Complaints adjudication

Adjudication on complaints dealt with by the Legal Complaints Service (LCS) and on other cases dealt with by our Compliance Directorate is undertaken by full-time adjudicators and by groups ('panels') of members of an adjudication panel.

The adjudicators are solicitors whose fulltime function is to make decisions in respect of complaints and other matters. The adjudication panel consists of a mixture of solicitors and lay people who give some of their time to this work. The lay members of the adjudication panel are appointed by the Master of the Rolls.

Areas of work that the adjudicators and/or the adjudication panel are involved with are:-

• Awards in respect of inadequate professional services
• Findings and disciplinary sanctions in respect of professional misconduct or regulatory breaches
• Decisions to refer solicitors to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal
• The imposition and removal of conditions on solicitors' practising certificates
• The issue of Remuneration Certificates
• Decisions in relation to the Compensation Fund
• Decisions on interventions into solicitors' firms

The powers of the adjudicators and the adjudication panel vary according to the kind of work that is being undertaken. In some cases there are rights of review, usually involving the panel considering decisions which have been made by an adjudicator. If you are involved in a matter that goes to adjudication, the decision-making process and any rights of review will be explained to you.

Apart from the work described above, adjudicators based at Redditch also determine issues affecting those who are training to become solicitors of England and Wales under the provisions of the Training Regulations 1990. Adjudicators also make decisions regarding overseas lawyers who wish to transfer under the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Regulations and applicants seeking membership to accreditation panels.