Errant Lawyers

The issue of errant lawyers has been widely debated for the past few weeks since the publishing of the names of errant lawyers in the newspapers. We at the The National Consumer Complaints Center (NCCC) ourselves had continued to receive complaints from the public on negligent lawyers. Common area of complaint includes delay in completing sale and purchase transactions. Many consumers end up paying interest to developers for delay which is at no fault of theirs. In most of the cases the lawyers and banks will not take the responsibility over such cases and the blame game would start. The common time limit allowed to complete a normal house purchase transaction is 2+1 and if this timing is inadequate, the Bar ouncil must seek avenues to have it extended. Until now we don't see and effords from the Bar Council. The Bar Council should look into this matter immediately as consumers are not allowed to choose their own lawyers.

The other common area of greviance is the charging of excessibve contingency fee. It is well known fact that there are lawyer's who charge as high as 40% in contingency fee and this is excluding the 10% which is paid by the insurance company as cost. The Legal Profession Etique Rules clearly forbids the charging of contingency fees but this has been going on right under the nose of the Bar Council and poor consumers are being abused. The NCCC agree's that the charging of contingency help's poor consumers in obtaining legal representation and therefore the Bar Council should legalise and regulate the charging of contingency fee so that consumers are not shortchanged. If they can control discounts on fee's, then why can't the Bar Council regulate this area as well.

We see that the Bar Council is more interested in issues which does not need urgent attention and by doing so it neglegts bread and butter issues. He NCCC hopes that the Bar Council is more pro-active is adressing issues which affects the consumers at large.

COMPENSATE TRADERS HIT BY FLOOD

Joyce Tagal Jun 13, 07 6:09pm

Consumers associations have called on the government to compensate traders who were affected in Sunday’s flash flood in Kuala Lumpur. National Consumer Complaints Center (NCCC) director Darshan Singh said the traders who suffered were all tax-paying citizens and therefore should be compensated for the damages incurred. He argued that the flood was not a natural disaster and could have been averted."This is not the first time, such floods have occurred in the area before." he said. "The government has failed in its duty to provide a safe environment to live and carry out business." Selangor and Wilayah Persekutuan Consumer's Association (SWPCA) president Mohd Yusof Abdul Rahman said he hoped that government agencies like development banks would offer aid to the traders. "DBKL (Kuala Lumpur City Hall) has to investigate the sources of Sunday's floods and fix the problems so that it does not happen again." he said. "We are worried that if the city centre keeps flooding, the traders will give up their businesses and move elsewhere." Yusof also said he had high hopes for the flood management portion of the Smart tunnel, but hoped that the government would prioritise flood investigations over toll collection. Ahead of schedule Yesterday, Irrigation and Drainage Department (DID) director-general Keizrul Abdullah announced yesterday that the Smart floodwater channel would be ready by June 23, a week ahead of schedule. According to Bernama, Keizrul said that the department was speeding up all flood mitigation measures. Other efforts will include the installation of pump systems in low-lying areas and construction of flood bypasses. "We will also upgrade the flood forecast and alert system. We've started sending flood warnings to Shah Alam residents by SMS (short messaging service)," he was quoted as saying. Malaysiakini