Can I just say that I am heartily sick of the, (thankfully) small minority, of (usually highly demanding) clients who get a fantastic service, routinely against very tight deadlines, who then go on to become tardy payers. Worse still are those, smaller minority, who then quibble at the agreed price.

So XXXXXXX Solicitors*, when next you are in a self-made disaster zone (because you will be), find someone else to do the best job humanly possible, including calling in precious favours on your behalf, regarding a “dead horse” of an appeal, and who is then prepared to wait months before being offered a fraction of the agreed fee by way of payment.

Rant over.

*Client confidentiality prevents naming and shaming (though the latter is unlikely).

Disclaimer

Obviously nearly all JRS clients are not like those discussed above. As I am in a slightly tetchy mood now, I intend to visit my great vengeance and furious anger, by way of a phone call, on all others who are. (We have also just discovers MCOL). If you do not hear from me by the end of the afternoon you can rest easily tonight.

We tend to be too involved in the daily grind of compliance matters to venture into commentary on wider policy issues. That said we are a small/medium enterprise, and as such to be targeted by one of the more talked about of the new ABS ventures. (Who chose the name LawVest?).

It seems that we, for instance, would be charged about £4,000 per year for this service. This is beyond what we have paid in (unrecovered) legal fees over our entire 16 year history.

There is much talk of “consolidation of the market” and of existential risk to the High Street firm however we remain sceptical. I have tried to think of firms, of our size, who would find this an economic “insurance” policy, as an alternative to having a chosen, local firm to use when necessary. This is what we will continue to do.

For those High Street firms feeling uneasy however one bit of simple, free advice. Why not offer a free, phone advice line to local small businesses, perhaps through local business agencies. We have done this for years beyond count, and it is the type of “slow burn” marketing which genuinely works.

If you do not follow us on Twitter, as most of you don’t, you might have missed the earlier exchanges with our fieldwork team about the current confluence of Lexcel and SQM audits. Surprisingly it is the former which are in greater numbers and there are about 7 currently happening in about the same number of days. Most of these have been projects conducted at the breakneck pace (unreasonably) required by the Family bid round. This left a less than desirable period for the systems to bed in and become effective, however the first assessment has just successfully been concluded, which is of great credit to the firm and to Dean, who has been their Lexcel “guide”.

So well done all concerned.

UPDATE

Second successful Lexcel assessment of the day (same rule about names as per my comment below). Similarly congratulations to another high speed applicant.

Regulars will have heard me fulminate against the ridiculous depths to which the LSC will go to “micro manage” the scheme – as I have referred to it using modern Public Sector parlance.

Have just spoken to a firm sweating on a possible Contract Notice for a single, billing error which, once again, represents less than a single percentage point of claims in the period. (The same exercise found a small number they had under-claimed, i.e. the net effect was in their favour).

The LSC, of course, like JRS, never suffers from human error.

You get paid in fixed fees so why shouldn’t your costs drafters? Yes this thought has occurred to us. We are consequently proposing an experiment with Fixed Fee Public Law Claim 1As.

Basically we will charge a single pre-agreed fee for every non-exceptional public law, graduated fee claim. If you are interested give us a ring.

Should it prove successful we might consider the same with Private Law.

Just received a really handy “bulletin” of the Feb 2012 changes to the Civil Contract. It has all the Family Help HSH and FAS rules and the Payment Annex.

I really like it, well done LSC.

This Friday’s Webinar, 24th February

The final session in our “Passing an SQM Audit” series.

We are now well into the “audit season” as Family firms, with 2012 contracts, are now facing the August deadline to get through an SQM audit.

We are therefore beginning to establish real life experience of the actual, SQM Delivery Partnership, audit practice, rather than relying on what we have picked up from meetings and training courses. For some this will be an entirely new experience for most the first such event for a number of years. Whichever of those two categories you fall into “forewarned is forearmed” – this is the simple aim of this weeks webinar.

Family License Only Bid Round frenzy put paid to a Friday Song I am afraid. With an hour to go this now seems under control, from our point of view, despite one or two last minute panics out there amongst the very paranoid. (The latter phrase could easily include me as I have been frantically rechecking every single one we have had any contact with).

How long it will be until I am forced back into the netherworld which is the ePortal remains to be seen.

We were informed of another Peer Review fail yesterday. Why are they continuing with this costly exercise especially in the light of the world economic situation? By now they know that “below competent” firms, as identified by PR, are statistically insignificant and other contractual options – a cost neutral SQM audit – are equally as likely, if not more so, to find them out.

Yes it was essentially a sole hand firm again. So by the time they have inevitably passed the follow up review, in 6-months time, that will have cost around £1,200.

It is a busy day on the CLS News page of the LSC Website. It is an equally busy day here at JRS HQ and so I cannot post on each story individually. It is worth a visas especially if you want to know about the VHCC backlog, “events” modelled case planning (Ring Graham for advice) and changes to reporting of controlled work.

I however had a Formal Review and a PoP to write and have to prepare for a well supported Webinar this lunchtime.