Unbelievable response from Legal Services Board

I am staggered at this response I have received from the Legal Services Board. I complained to the Solicitors Regulation Authority that Restons solicitors for many years were adding illegal contingency fees to debts. I knew this because I worked at Weightmans and we used Restons contract with HFC(HSBC) to draft our own contract. I reported Weightmans to the Law Society who confirmed that the charges were unlawful.

Weightmans immediately sacked me for reporting them and at a mediation to sort out our differences they produced this document.This is prima facie evidence from one firm of solicitors concerning the conduct of another firm. I sent this to SRA with my complaint. The SRA after more than a year stated that there was no evidence that Restons had been applying illegal charges and that they had “spoken to them”. Why did they ignore this evidence from Weightmans; why did not contact Weightmans if they found no evidence of wrongdoing by Restons?

I therefore contacted the Legal Services Board who are ultimately responsible for the SRA. At first they showed concern at SRA behaviour but on enquiring, today I received this  email from them:

“Dear Mr Wilson – thank you for your email of 21 January. I wrote to the SRA on 29 November and received a reply on 14 January; I enclose a copy of it. The SRA’s response says that it fully investigated the allegation about possible unlawful contingency fees by Restons and it found no evidence to support the specific allegation. As you are aware, the LSB has no power to intervene in individual cases and does not therefore intend to pursue this matter”

And here is the letter they received from the SRA:It is no wonder that banks and lawyers get away with so much fraud if that is best that regulators can do. Unbelievable! Nothing to see here – move along.