Will-writing scheme: the cost of differentiation

Initial support for new scheme undermined by membership criteria and overbearing processes affecting the economics of will writing

The will-writing quality scheme, which opened for membership on Monday 21 October, was the convenient excuse the government needed to justify not making will writing a reserved activity.

The lord chancellor must have been rubbing his hands ever since Law Society chief executive des Hudson unveiled the scheme in July last year: there was the legal profession's largest representative body doing the job he wanted them to do without even having to ask. Deaf to solicitors' calls to tighten up the regulation of will writing, Chris Grayling could comfortably push the government's deregulatory agenda and invite stakeholders to come up with suitable schemes that would help raise standards and enhance consumer protection. Both quality schemes in place - conveyancing, and now wills - certainly aim to achieve these lofty objectives but the circumstances in which they were born make them unlikely responses to the challenges they seek to address.

The Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) was drawn up after pressure from lenders seeking even more assurances from solicitors that they would meet exacting standards in relation to risk or be booted off panels. WIQS feels and looks the same but it is being presented positively as a kitemark that firms can use to differentiate themselves from unregulated will-writing providers - except that the scheme is open to all organisations regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, not just law firms.

Trojan horse

Paul Hajek, principal at Clutton Cox Solicitors, sees this as a major issue, saying it is a "Trojan horse" for alternative business structures where client care culture is not embedded in the organisation in the way it is in solicitors firms.

"I like the differentiation the scheme can bring, and the national campaign [scheduled to start in January 2014] becomes a manageable co-branding venture that could benefit smaller firms; you can use this in your own marketing effort," he says.

"CQS was different because there is an immediate business imperative behind it," Hajek continues. "With WIQS there isn't the same imperative but I was interested in joining until I heard that it would be open to non-law firms such as Co-op, Stobart and Saga."

Already, he says, the way some of the non-legal brands are using the fact that they are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in their advertising amounts to "a parasitic use of the solicitor brand".

And it is the solicitor brand, the Chipping Sodbury solicitor says, that any scheme, whether area-specific or profession-wide, should promote. But he simply doesn't see the benefit of joining a club that has non-legal ABSs as members. "This will just dilute the brand," he says. "Some of these ABSs may have loyal customers but that's not the same as having clients in the way that we, as trusted advisers, have. We should make any scheme the differentiator - the general public doesn't know you're a specialist in conveyancing or family, and that would make you stand out against non-solicitors."

Neil Quantick, principal at Quanticks, would also like to support the scheme but confesses he has mixed views. In particular because of what he calls "the window-sticker approach" of the scheme.

Window stickers

"I grew up in a provincial firm where window stickers was the way accredited practices displayed their expertise, but it doesn't really work," he says. "WIQS is packaged in the same way as CQS but in reality it's very different. Do we really need to develop individual schemes for each practice area - why not build the solicitor brand instead? Where does this stop?"

What gets Quantick's firm the work is not having a sticker in the window, he says, it's the accessibility, the quality of the advice and how swiftly it can be delivered. He also doesn't believe that the public will know enough about the scheme to make it a differentiator when choosing one firm over another.

Worse still, while "anything that promotes an improvement in service is something that should be welcomed with open arms", Quantick's experience of quality schemes is that "they become a reluctant tick-box annoyance in firms that feel they may need the badge".

John Bunker, head of private client knowledge management at Thomas Eggar, goes further. He too sees some benefits in the scheme, even for firms that do not wish to join - "there are elements you may want to incorporate in the way your firm works". But he is disappointed that the scheme eventually designed by Chancery Lane after consultation with the profession is "at times hugely over the top" and may discourage people from signing up. "There is a risk that lots of quality firms - small and large - will not join because they will see it as overbearing."

The WIQS protocol, Bunker explains, is time-consuming and most of the time unnecessary. "Even with simple wills you are expected to raise unlikely issues that some clients just don't want to hear anything about." Bunker's point is about the economics of will writing. Solicitors who scrupulously adhere to the protocol could simply cut themselves off the local market because the resulting higher cost of writing wills would force them to raise their fees well beyond their competitors'. "It's a competitive market out there; we need to raise standards but that's too much."

The real problem, Bunker continues, is the one highlighted by the Consumer Panel, which pointed out that even wills written by solicitors were found wanting because solicitors don't listen to their clients. "We need to listen more; you must make sure you listen to clients. All the processes in WIQS don't help us to listen more. There are loads of new processes, but will you be hearing whether there is a problem in the family, about somebody who is not good with money, etc?"

No doubt WIQS could help raise your profile as an expert specialising in wills and inheritance, but the question you will have to ask yourself is: at what cost? Adherence to the protocols could mean higher delivery costs and you may price yourself out of the market, so you will need to think very carefully whether an upwards shift in fees allows you to reach more discerning clients with deeper pockets. You could otherwise find that the advantages of WIQS are far outweighed by the disadvantages. SJ