Stop legal services (Solicitors) regulating themselves and make them accountable

We believe that the present position where the legal services industry regulates itself, or is regulated by members of a closely related profession is not credible for a country trying to obtain accountable legal services. We believe that Solicitors should be put on an equal footing with every other profession. In order for the above to happen we suggest that the LCS and the SRA should remain, but like every other trade organization/ union they should be honest as to where their loyalties lay. The LSO would appear to be a tax payer funded service which does very little if anything for consumers of legal services, and a lot to help Solicitors give the false impression that they are effectively regulated. We suggest that it is closed and replaced with a verifiably independent commitee made up from voluteer ex jurors who have had no connection to legal services. They would be given the power to make compulsory awards from Solicitors to their clients, and would be rotated to ennsure their decisions could not be influenced. We believe that if the LCS/SRA knows that the next stage of complaint will not be biased towards solicitors they will make more reasonable decisions, much the same as other trade organizations, and trade unions do. If the client of the Solicitor is not happy with the findinds of the commitee then he should be able to sue the Solicitor in the County Court with the verdict being made by a jury rather than a judge. To close we the undersigned consider it to be a disgrace that the tax payer has to pay for the LSO who helps Solicitors, it is a terrible case of the poor subsidising the rich