The Court of Appeal has refused an applicant leave to seek judicial review of two Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA) decisions concerning his complaints about a solicitor’s handling of his late mother’s estate.
In a judgment delivered by Ms Justice Faherty on 19 October 2023, the court said the applicant had not met the threshold for leave. It upheld the High Court’s refusal of leave, which had been made on 13 February 2023. The appeal had been heard on 24 July 2023, when the court indicated it would refuse the application; the judgment gives its reasons.
The applicant complained to the LSRA in 2020, alleging inadequate service, excessive costs and misconduct. The solicitor disputed his account and said the applicant’s lack of cooperation with probate paperwork had delayed administration of his parents’ estates. The LSRA initially deemed the complaint admissible as one of inadequate service and excessive costs, then determined that the services were adequate and the costs were not excessive. A Review Committee confirmed that decision in March 2022.
The applicant sought judicial review, alleging that the LSRA had failed to investigate his individual complaints fairly and had relied on the solicitor’s account. The Court of Appeal found that the LSRA had received statements from both parties and that its decisions summarised the complaints and responses. The fact that the solicitor had not been asked to provide a word-for-word response to each complaint did not, by itself, establish arguable procedural unfairness, the court said.
The judgment stressed that judicial review was not a route for the court to reweigh the evidence or substitute its view for the LSRA’s. It also said that a challenge to the LSRA’s handling of the misconduct complaint came too late: the applicant had not sought judicial review within three months of being told in August 2021 which complaint categories had been admitted.
The court noted that the applicant could have applied to the High Court under section 63(1) of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 to seek rescission or variation of the Review Committee’s determination. He did not use that route. The Court of Appeal therefore refused leave to seek judicial review. The ruling concerns access to judicial review; it does not determine the underlying estate dispute.