The Law Society is now actively promoting its new residential conveyancing quality scheme.
The Conveyancing Quality Scheme, which is supported by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, will provide a recognised quality standard for residential conveyancing practices.
No details of the benefits of the scheme are known, though the Law Society is planning to publish these at the beginning in April to coincide with the Easter house-hunting surge.
It is reported that Law Society president Linda Lee is claiming that over the past three years, the society had led consumer PR campaigns encouraging the public to use a solicitor rather than other legal providers – all of which had been successful.
This campaign it seems was rather low key as reports from some solicitors claim that the Law Society has not done enough to promote the profession and that a large section of the public has now resigned itself to be led by cost rather than quality.
Linda Lee is reported to have said: “We now plan to do the same with CQS, a scheme which will be of genuine benefit to anyone buying a home.
“The aim is to generate publicity for legal practices which have secured the CQS mark of excellence and enable them to market their CQS status to the public effectively.
Until the benefits to the consumer are known a large number of solicitors are asking whether this scheme is likely to become another ‘white elephant’ similar to the Law Society’s Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence panels. Those schemes that have been up and running for a number of years have had little impact on the consumer’s choice of solicitor.
The Law Society is hoping that this scheme will help solicitors compete with outside suppliers when they begin to come into the market after the full implementation of the Legal Services Act in October of this year. The general view however is this move is represents ‘too little, too late’ and is likely to have little impact.
Morgan Jones and Pett are solicitors who provide legal advice and services to clients based in England and Wales and who can be contacted on 01603877000 or via email at davidpett@m-j-p.co.uk
