Legal Ombudsman

Covid did not significantly reduce the number of dissatisfied clients contacting the Legal Ombudsman but it hit the organisation’s ability to deal with them, according to figures out today.

The High Court has rejected a client’s application for permission to judicially review a £9,600 award made in his favour by the Legal Ombudsman that he claimed was insufficient.

Performance at the Legal Ombudsman is finally improving, with more cases being closed, but dealing with the backlog is only lengthening wait times for new complainants.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers is set to become the first regulator to introduce a ‘polluter pays’ element to how it recovers the cost of the Legal Ombudsman from those it regulates.

Approval for a 13% increase in the budget of the Legal Ombudsman has come with a warning that it must make deliver this time or face losing its role in dealing with complaints against lawyers.

The Legal Ombudsman has scaled back its planned increased budget for the coming year, but it is still set to increase by 13%, or another £5 per lawyer.

There has been a striking improvement in staff morale at the Legal Ombudsman, where the proportion of staff desperate to find another job has fallen from a third to just 8% in a year.

The Legal Ombudsman has paid compensation to one of its ombudsmen after being found guilty of indirect sex discrimination, Legal Futures can reveal.

The Legal Ombudsman is “setting itself up to fail” by proposing to give itself more work than it can cope with and asking for an “extraordinary high” budget increase of 19%.

The Legal Ombudsman’s proposed 19% budget increase is not justified, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers has said in calling for an external task force to help it deal with complaints more quickly.

The Law Society has told the Legal Ombudsman to ask the government for “Covid-related financial assistance” instead of expecting the profession to fund a proposed 19% budget hike.

The decision on whether to approve a 19% increase in the Legal Ombudsman’s budget is likely to be “finely balanced”, with the possibility of having to find an alternative to it lurking in the background.

The Legal Ombudsman’s first ever in-year call for supplementary budget, seeking an extra £344,000, has gone to the Lord Chancellor for approval after being given the green light by the Legal Services Board.

The Legal Ombudsman is planning a 19% increase in its budget for 2021/22, and a further 6% the year after, arguing the scheme is currently in an “unsustainable position”.

The Legal Ombudsman is set to make its first ever in-year call for supplementary budget, seeking an extra £344,000 to make up in part for previous miscalculations, Legal Futures can reveal.