Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I, too, support these amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. I am particularly concerned about Clause 133 and the requirement that the respondent who is in receipt of complaints by the applicant should be required to pay charges to the OLC. As a retired judge, I put a slightly different perspective on this. In some cases, judges force an agreement, settlement or, indeed, outcome over which the lawyer may have no control. They may be situations in which, for a number of very good reasons, there is absolutely no point in going to appeal but that is the basis of the complaint to the OLC. You cannot put the judge in the dock and it is extraordinarily unfair to put the lawyer in the dock for a situation over which he had no control. An absolute obligation that the respondent should pay charges would be manifestly unjust, like many other circumstances that have been referred to. I should not like to think that this Government acted unjustly in this sort of circumstance.