Lawyers will have to pay fines of up to £20,000 if found guilty of providing an inadequate service to the public under new plans revealed yesterday.
The Scottish Executive’s new Legal Profession and Legal Aid Bill will radically shake up how the profession is policed and punished.
The most worrying aspect of the new bill, particularly for smaller rural practices, is that the fine for being found guilty of providing poor service is being increased drastically from £5,000 to £20,000.
Concerns among the profession show that while the larger corporate firms may be able to absorb such a heavy fine smaller firms could be put out of business in rural areas where access to justice is already under its greatest threat.
The chairman of one firm said to The Firm: “This could be very worrying for the smaller firms outside the major cities where a fine of this amount could spell the end of the road for them. Obviously all law firms should be policed equally, but I cannot see the point I finding law firms so heavily that many could be closed down meaning that access to justice is impeded even further.”
The new complaints body proposed will handle complaints against the service provided by lawyers, but it will not handle complaints about the professional conduct of lawyers, whicb will still be overseen by the Law Society of Scotland.
However, the new proposals have not been greeted with enthusiasm by the Law Society . Caroline Flanagan, President of the Law Society of Scotland, said: \"Whilst we have recognised the demand for a more demonstrably independent system for dealing with service complaints about the legal profession we can only fully support changes to the current system if that sees an improvement to what is currently on offer.
\"The proposals outlined in the Bill, in our view, are not an improvement on the current system and seem likely to give rise to confusion amongst the public and see a significant increase in costs. We have significant concerns about a number of key features in the Bill and we will be highlighting those as the Bill passes through the Scottish Parliament\".
Another change will see a wider group of organisations able to apply for rights of audience in Scottish courts, a move which the Executive hopes will improve access to justice.

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