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Home > Projects and research > Web based surveys > Ethics checks for law firms - the survey results

Ethics checks for law firms - the survey results

start with the explanatory notes
go straight to the workplace culture check -  the results
go straight to the billing practices (medium to large law firms) check – the results
go straight to the complaints management systems check – the results  

 

Explanatory notes  

Individual members of law firms are most welcome to complete the Ethics Checks for Law Firms surveys simply as interested individuals.

The surveys work best however when law firms decide to take part as a corporate exercise, as a firm - when firms ask all or most or at least representative samples of each of the different levels and classifications of their people to take part and, if they have more than one office, people from each of their different branch offices.

The surveys have been designed specifically to allow the individual people who complete them to remain anonymous and to allow their law firms to remain anonymous also. Individual respondents need not identify themselves at all, and participating law firms need identify themselves only by a secret code.

Firms that take part of their own volition can choose their code themselves and, if they have more than one office, can opt to give their branch offices supplementary codes with a view to comparing the results. The Commission will assign a code (and any supplementary branch office codes) for any incorporated legal practice (ILP) it asks to take part as a form of compliance audit pursuant to section 130 of the Legal Profession Act 2007. 

For further information, see the Instructions for Survey Managers at participating law firms.

The surveys comprise a series of questions that ask the people who are taking part to select an answer from a list of possible answers simply by ‘ticking the box’. Some of the questions allow respondents to give a more detailed answer by adding comments in a free text box.

We will publish and regularly update the survey results in several different formats – routinely in what we call standard form reports, and from time to time in what we call select form and comments reports.  We will comply with the national standards for the ethical conduct of surveys of these kinds and so, for example, we will not publish any reports that tend because of a small sample size to identify any of the individual people who completed the survey or their law firm. 

Standard form reports are purely quantitative. They describe how many people taking part answered each of the survey questions and how many of the people who answered a question selected each of the possible answers.

We will publish and regularly update standard form reports that aggregate the results of the surveys that have been completed by:

Cross-tabulation reports like standard form reports are purely quantitative but they dissect the results data differently and in finer detail. Some firms will no doubt want to see more ‘granular’ reports of these kinds and so might we. Accordingly, subject to the proviso that we will not produce reports that tend to identify any of the individual people who have completed a survey or their firm, we will respond to requests and generate reports on our own initiative which compare, for example:

Comments reports are qualitative in character. They collate the comments people have made in the free text boxes which appear under some (but not all) of the survey questions. 

 

The results - the workplace culture check  (results to 9 March 2009)

Twenty-four interested individuals and 478 people from 15 participating law firms and (because some of those firms have multiple offices) from 30 branch offices completed the workplace culture check survey by 9 March 2009 – a total of 502 people took part. Three of the 15 firms were incorporated legal practices.  

We want to acknowledge our gratitude to those firms and their people for their participation. It was an entirely voluntary exercise on their part and we thank them.  It was a ‘learning by doing’ experiment for all of us and for our part a great opportunity to ‘road test’ and in due course to improve the survey methodology and questions.   Some of the people who completed the survey suggested ways the survey instrument could be improved and we are grateful to them for that.

We note that 73% of the 478 people from the 15 participating law firms said they found completing the survey to be either very helpful or helpful in assessing the ethical culture of their firm and that only 3% said they found it unhelpful. Similarly 68% of the 24 interested individuals said they found the exercise to be either very helpful or helpful and none of them said they found it unhelpful.

We note also that we asked the 15 senior partners / legal practitioner directors who acted as their firm’s survey managers to give us their feedback after we first posted the survey results and that 14 of them completed the feedback survey by 12 May.

All but 1 of them said that the workplace culture check survey was either helpful or very helpful in assessing the ethical culture of their firm and a useful exercise and none of them said it was unhelpful – the 1 ‘dissenter’ said it was neither helpful nor unhelpful. Notably 8 of them said their firm had changed the way it goes about its business as a result of participating in the survey and all but 2 of them said it could potentially have changed the way they go about their business, even if it didn’t on this occasion.

Notably, too, 9 of them answered ‘no’ to the question ‘would expecting firms to undertake the workplace culture check or similar survey annually as a mandatory regulatory exercise be too great a regulatory burden?’ Only 1 of the 5 who answered ‘yes’ appears to have rejected the proposition outright - 4 of them qualified their answer by adding comments in the  free text box that accompanied the question.

The aggregated results

The feedback from the survey managers at the participating law firms

The cross-tabulated results for the participating law firms

We cross-tabulated the results to compare how the 478 people from the 15 participating law firms answered the questions according to their employment type within their firm, the length of their post-admission experience and their gender - the latter because the Commission's complaints data shows consistently that women lawyers are several times less likely than men lawyers to be subject to complaint (see the Commission's annual reports).

Note that we have divided several of the cross-tabulation reports into types A and B. That is because we can cross-tabulate no more than 5 catagories in the 1 report and several of the cross-tabulations involve more than 5 categories. 

The results for each participating law firm

We have sorted each firm's results into categories determined by the size of the firm (or, if the firm has more than 1 office and coded its branch offices separately, the size of the branch office). We determine the size of a firm (and/or its branch offices) by the number of practicising certificate holders the firm employs (or employes at the branch office).

Click on the firms’ self-assigned firm and/or branch office codes in the following table to see that firm's results.

firm / office size

the firm and / or branch office codes

    <9 PC holders

Rn22ab

Ln01es-1

    10-19 PC holders

24fb12    

w2r4y7

Ln01es-2

mick01a

mick01b

mick01c

    20-49 PC holders

Ln01es

mick01

4goto8

4goto8-1

4goto8-2

    >50 PC holders

Mc75cd

lsce01

l20l01

4009xy

XAC1TS6

PCLB22

    size unknown
                

qld999

100208

Xy12ga

Xy12ga-1

Xy12ga-2

Xy12ga-3

Firms that want us to generate more detailed cross-tabulated reports for their firm (in the same way we generated cross-tabulated reports for the results overall) should approach the Commissioner with that request either directly (if they are prepared to waive their anonymity) or through a trusted intermediary. Contact the Commissioner at lsc@lsc.qld.gov.au and insert Att: Commissioner in the subject line.    

 

The results -  the billing practices check for medium to large law firms 

 (last updated on insert date) 

We will report these results in the same format as the results for the Workplace culture check.



The results - the complaints management systems check (results to 30 June 2009)

 The Commission required 35 incorporated legal practices to complete the complaints management systems check over the period May-June 2009 as a form of compliance audit. A total of 271 people completed the survey including lawyers, managers, paralegals and other support staff. 

We note that 64% of the 271 people who completed the survey said they found it to be either very helpful or helpful in assessing their firm’s complaints management systems and that only 9% said they found it unhelpful. We have asked the legal practitioner directors of each of the 35 firms to give us feedback from their firm’s point of view and will report what they have to say in due course.   

Notably 80% of the people who completed the survey said their firm has a complaints management policy and/or procedure and 96% that their firm encourages the reporting of complaints to management. 

We have sent audit reports setting out their firm’s results to the legal practitioner directors of each of the 35 firms which took part in the survey and included the aggregated results of all 35 firms to enable them to make the obvious comparisons. Certainly the aggregated results suggest a number of ways in which law firms could improve their complaints management systems:

We have also cross-tabulated the results to compare how the 271 people from the 35 firms answered the survey questions according to their employment type within their firm (by whether they are legal practitioner directors, practice managers, employed solicitors, paralegals etc). Note that we have divided the cross-tabulation reports into types A and B. That is because we can cross-tabulate no more than 5 categories in the 1 report and there are more than 5 employment types.

We note that we asked the 35 legal practitioner directors who acted as their firm’s survey managers to give us their feedback after we first sent them the survey results and that 22 of them completed the feedback survey by 20 July. Notably 14 of the 22 who gave us their feedback said that the survey was either helpful or very helpful to them in assessing the adequacy of their complaints management systems and only 1 of them said it was unhelpful. Similarly, 14 of them said their firm had changed the way it goes about its business as a result of participating in the survey and all but 1of them said it could potentially have changed the way they go about their business, even if it didn’t on this occasion.

The aggregated results

The feedback from the survey managers at the participating law firms

Further information

All law firms including sole practitioner law firms should have and implement an effective complaints management policy and related procedures. The Queensland Ombudsman and the Law Society of England and Wales have published useful material which will help law firms devise and/or improve their complaints management systems – for further information, go to:

Queensland Ombudsman's Effective Complaint Management Checklist

Queensland Ombudsman's Developing Effective Complaint Management Policies and procedures

Law Society of England and Wales Complaint Management Practice Note