Reassurance, 21st century style

For those of you that are old enough, you’ll remember the days when looking for a plumber was easy. You just looked through the Yellow Pages (for those of you not old enough to remember those days, this was a big (yellow) book, listing all the local businesses, what they offered and their telephone contact details). Well, I say it was easy, but actually there was still no way of knowing whether the tradesperson was reputable just because they were listed.

With water dripping from the ceiling, there would be several pages of plumbers, some who had paid for big adverts to draw the eye, listed in alphabetical order and the choice often came down to who was closest and/or answered the phone first.

There was a signal though that one supplier might be better than another – a logo supplied by one of the tradesman guilds, a badge of quality. If you saw this, you knew they’d met some minimum standards around quality of work and that provided some reassurance.

But the primary driver was who could come now and stop the leak. And that logo was easy to copy, so the only way to really know if that plumber was genuine was to ring the issuer of the badge – who has time for that when the kitchen ceiling may fall in at any minute?

We are all a little intimidated when it comes to buying something we don’t often, and the rise of the internet makes it even more so. When thinking about where to go or who to buy from, we are confronted with an array of choice from sophisticated-looking websites, but warnings about cybercrime and internet security are becoming more prevalent too, and so that choice is becoming even more complicated.

CILEx Regulation (CRL) provides all its regulated law firms with a logo to indicate that they are regulated by it, that they have met the required minimum standards to deliver legal services in their specialist area and that the consumer will be able to seek redress if things go wrong.

But just as with the plumber’s paper badge, these are easy to copy if displayed on a website – so how can you know for sure that the badge is real?

Well, CRL has taken the issue of a logo one stage further and turned it into a smart logo, so that once on a website of a law firm regulated by CRL, users can click on that logo and the regulator will confirm that the firm is genuine (a bit quicker than having to call to check!). CRL can control who uses the logo as it is hard to copy and add to websites which aren’t genuine. Even if it is added, you won’t be able to click through on a copied badge.

By the end of 2018, all CRL firms will be using this smart logo (because it makes good sense). In the meantime, if you visit a website which displays the CILEx Regulation logo, and you cannot click through on it, we recommend you contact us at info@cilexregulation.org.uk.

So, whilst we know there are many reasons for choosing a legal provider, looking for the CILEx Regulation logo will help you to recognise a regulated legal specialist and provide some reassurance. And, as the famous grocer says, “every little helps”.