17/02/2010 – LSC publishes new improving your quality guide
The Legal Services Commission (LSC) has published a new generic guide to help legal practitioners learn from the experience of others.
The new Improving Your Quality guide is the latest in a series of guides published by the LSC, since 2006. Previous guides have considered specific areas of law such as debt, employment, family, housing, immigration, mental health and welfare benefits.
The new generic guide is based on the comments that peer reviewers made in their reports on a number of different categories of law on what represents good practice and focuses on areas of law not covered in the other guides. The guide covers a wide range of issues relevant to ensuring quality and includes information on the most common positive findings, the most common concerns and most common suggested areas for improvement, which include:
- using a template initial letter to ensure the instructions received, advice given and action agrees are always recorded and the advice given is tailored to the client's situation;
- reviewing existing systems to ensure that clients are provided with regular and accurate information about costs and funding;
- giving information and advice about the law and procedure using standard letters or leaflets, provided that the client also receives tailored advice applicable to their specific circumstances;
- reviewing supervision systems to make sure they are effective, particularly file reviews; and
- using files reviews to focus on the quality of the advice that has been given.
The most common positive findings found by peer reviewers highlighted in the guide include:
- a proactive approach to cases;
- effective file organisation, enabling cases to be managed effectively;
- achieving good outcomes or that best possible; and
- evidence of clients receiving advice about the law and procedure that applies to their case on a continuing basis.
The Improving Your Quality: Generic Guide is available to download from the LSC website.
The latest issue of the LSC's Focus newsletter is available here.