New Petitions

The next new petition is PE606, from Mrs Katherine Smith, calling on the Parliament to take the necessary steps to improve the transparency and accountability of, and accessibility to, the complaints procedures of the Law Society of Scotland. The petition was prompted by the difficulties that the petitioner experienced in attempting to raise a civil claim for financial loss against a solicitor on the ground of negligence.The petitioner claims that she was refused access to legal aid for her claim, despite being on income support, and that the Law Society has failed to provide information that she requested on the specific master policy regarding the insurance of the allegedly negligent firm of solicitors and on a typical master policy. She also claims that the Scottish Legal Aid Board failed to respond to various requests that she made for information.It is suggested that the committee should agree to write to the Scottish Executive to seek its comments on the issues that are raised and the measures that are proposed in the petition, given that the Executive would be responsible for introducing the proposed measures, rather than the Parliament, as she suggests. The committee might also wish to write to the Law Society to seek details of the rationale behind its decision not to provide copies of individual master policies or a standard master policy on request and to seek an indication of the types of circumstances in which it might decide to compensate persons who have suffered loss as the result of a solicitor's dishonesty.

None of us really knows what an individual master policy is, but that is one reason why we should write to the Law Society.

The Law Society can write back to explain the situation. We can simply ask for its comments at this stage. Are members agreed?Members indicated agreement.