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O P I N ION BY PHILIP SLAYTON LEGAL ETHICS Canada needs a Britain has created an independent office where the public can take complaints about lawyers. It's about time this country takes that function out of the hands of law societies. attempts to complain to the law societ- ies came to nothing. I've received over a thousand such e-mails since Lawyers Gone Bad came out, and two or three messages still arrive each week. For sure, some of the people who contact me are not to be taken seriously, but a lot seem to have substantial and unresolved issues. Sadly, I have to tell them that I can't help, and that I don't know anyone who might offer succour. There's obviously something missing has been incompetent at his expense. Where can he take his complaint? What satisfaction is he likely to get? Bring the problem to us, says the pro- S vincial law society. It's our job to consider complaints and mete out discipline. But the objections to this approach are many. For starters, since when is it a good idea for people to sit in judgment of their own kind? It looks unfair, and that's because it omeone's unhappy with his erstwhile lawyer. Perhaps this person thinks the law- yer's behaviour was uneth- ical, or believes the lawyer is unfair. And, anyway, many observers (I'm one of them) think the history of self-discipline by lawyers in this country is unimpressive, to say the least. Four years ago, I published Lawyers Gone Bad. Much of the book was about lawyers who behaved improperly and what happened, or didn't happen, as a result. From the day the book came out, I have been swamped with e-mails and calls from people who want to tell me unhappy stories about their involvement with the legal profession. Most of my cor- respondents describe how some lawyer mistreated them. Many tell me how their 18 A PRIL 2011 www. CANADIAN Lawyermag.com in the system. We need an institution, independent of the profession, where you can take a complaint about a lawyer and have it dealt with quickly, without time- wasting and expensive pomp and circum- stance. The Brits have figured this out. In October 2010, the Legal Ombudsman for England and Wales, provided for by the Legal Services Act of 2007, opened its doors. The ombudsman's job is to resolve legal complaints in a fair, independent, and informal way. Says its web site: "If we decide the service you received was unsatisfactory, we can ask the lawyer and the firm to put it right. . . . Once an Ombudsman decision is accepted, we can make sure the lawyer does do what we say is needed." The ombudsman can compel a lawyer to apologize to his client, and can require payment of up to £30,000 (Cdn$47,634) compensation for loss suffered, inconve- nience and distress experienced, or the reasonable cost of putting right an error. If the ombudsman upholds a complaint against a lawyer, that lawyer must pay a fee. A consumer must complain to his lawyer first, before going to the ombuds- man, and the ombudsman, thoughtfully, ANThONy TREMMAGLIA leg al ombudsman