If we book a holiday package deal and it is ATOL protected we all know that if the holiday company goes bust we will get our money back. Things aren’t quite so simple if we go online and book our flights and hotels ourselves. It is safer to pay with a credit card and then our banks may cover any default if the organisations to whom we have paid money go bust. Otherwise we will probably lose out.

When you consider that when you move home you pay to your lawyer the largest sums of money you ever pay to a third party in your life, it is good to know that the monies are safe. Not only do Jackson Lees have substantial insurance in place to cover your losses, we also pay into a compensation fund so that even if someone else’s lawyer is dishonest, the profession will pick up the tab. The protections are unparalleled in the service sector of our economy. 

These protections are even more remarkable when one considers that billions of pounds pass through lawyers’ client accounts every single day in the UK. Without the trust the solicitors profession has engendered over many generations, our economy just could not function; and yet hardly any money goes astray and the trust placed in us is well merited. At the end of the day we pick up the cost of dishonesty and indeed honest mistakes made in the course of a transaction either through our payments for Professional Indemnity Insurance or our payments to the Solicitors Compensation Fund. 

We also pay dearly to our regulators the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for the right to practice. We want our regulators to deal with our members strictly and to deal quickly with any dishonest or incompetent members who have the potential to cost us money or bring us into disrepute.  The cost of delivering that regulation is not cheap. Indeed we also pay our auditors who carry out an annual inspection of the way we deal with your monies and report any breaches to the SRA.  There is a debate going on amongst legal regulators about the cost of this regulation and whether the public safeguards should be relaxed.  For example, what would you think about dealing with a lawyer who did not have these safeguards but who might be able to do the transaction for a bit less because they are not paying for the cost of default? Jackson Lees' view is clear - trust engendered by the safeguards we provide is worth the small extra cost.

Jackson Lees goes even further in the safeguards we provide our clients. Each year we are voluntarily audited by the Law Society to show we are compliant with the Law Society Lexcel Quality Mark. Lexcel is a guarantee that we have good quality management systems in place to ensure the delivery of good services to our clients. That audit has just taken place and the auditor was complimentary about our systems and management practices and the progress we have made in bringing the practices of Jackson Canter and Lees Solicitors into the common Jackson Lees brand. The auditor commented

‘I heard comments from staff stating that they felt looked after and they are part of one big team. Staff told me they like working for an organisation that has a social conscience.’

We do believe in looking after our staff and making a positive difference through the things that we do.  It is our staff that deliver that difference for all our clients and long may they benefit from the extraordinary safeguards we provide.