Legal Ombudsman

Ian Brack, formerly chief executive and chief accounting officer of the Olympic Lottery Distributor, has been appointed interim chief executive of the Legal Ombudsman in succession to Adam Sampson after his resignation last month.

The Legal Ombudsman has exercised for the first time its power under the Legal Services Act to name “in the public interest” a lawyer responsible for a series of complaints.

The Chief Legal Ombudsman, Adam Sampson, has resigned from his role after a controversy about travel expenses meant his organisation’s accounts are likely to be qualified by the National Audit Office.

The High Court has ruled that a law firm cannot escape responsibility for handling complaints relating to a sole practice with which it merged. It said that as Kerman & Co had enjoyed the benefit and goodwill of the deal, it also had to accept the burden.

The Legal Ombudsman is set to start receiving complaints about claims management complaints from 28 January 2015 – some two and a half years after the switch from the Claims Management Regulator was first mooted by the government.

The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) is to launch a complaints portal this month that will enable lawyers to manage all of their contact with the organisation online. LeO will also encourage consumers to manage their complaint through the portal.

The Legal Ombudsman has introduced a policy for dealing with complaints about organisations which provide non-legal as well as legal services, such as some alternative business structures and, shortly, accountants who offer probate advice.

The Legal Ombudsman has announced that it will be reviewing its internal guidance after a barrister was cleared of misconduct because LeO failed to share information.

The Bar Disciplinary Tribunal has told the Legal Ombudsman that “co-operation is a two-way process”, in a case involving a failure to share information with the lawyer who was the subject of a complaint.

The new chair of the Office for Legal Complaints – which oversees the Legal Ombudsman – has outlined his ambition for the service to cover unregulated providers of legal services and those offering legal advice as part of a wider package.

The Ministry of Justice proposals on how the Legal Ombudsman’s costs for handling complaints against claims management companies are recovered disproportionally penalises those working in personal injury, a leading marketing collective has argued.

Public awareness of the Legal Ombudsman is continuing to fall, while the number of dissatisfied clients who do not bother to complain is increasing, a survey has found.

Claims management companies will have to pay a separate ‘Lord Chancellor’s complaints fee’ of up to £40,000 on top of their annual regulation fee with the shift in complaints handling from the Ministry of Justice to the Legal Ombudsman.

The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) has suggested that conveyancers, rather than clients, should answer to HMRC when stamp duty payments fail to arrive.

The High Court has struck down an “unlawful and irrational” Legal Ombudsman decision to reduce a law firm’s fee and compensate its client for distress and inconvenience.