Legal Ombudsman

The High Court has issued a two-year civil restraint order against a barrister who has repeatedly and unsuccessfully challenged disciplinary findings made against him. The judge said he approached the task “with something of a heavy heart” given that it involved a member of the Bar.

People with complaints about claims management companies (CMCs) are more likely to receive a financial remedy from their credit card provider than the Legal Ombudsman, it has emerged. The most three most complained-about CMCs have since surrendered their authorisation, leaving questions about whether consumers actually receive the compensation ordered.

‘Named and shamed’ barrister Tariq Rehman has come top of the latest table of complaints about lawyers published by the Legal Ombudsman. He was subject to more complaints than the combined total recorded for the country’s two largest consumer law firms, Irwin Mitchell and Slater & Gordon.

Only a change in the law would allow the Legal Ombudsman to cover complaints from consumers of unregulated law firms, the chair of the organisation’s governing body has said as he called on paralegals to campaign for access to the redress scheme.

The flexible benefits scheme that saw Legal Ombudsman staff effectively paid hundreds of thousands of pounds on top of their salaries in the organisation’s first six years – until the government deemed the payments to be irregular – has been scrapped.

This is a “considerable failure” of the legal services market to meet the needs of small businesses, a major lobbying group has told the Competition and Markets Authority. The Federation of Small Business said the barriers small businesses face in resolving legal problems were “numerous”.

The High Court has strongly criticised the Legal Ombudsman as it quashed a decision sanctioning a barrister for pursuing court action against a direct access client for fees – when the client had not complained about it. It also expressed surprise at “the vehemence of the language used by the LO” in its finding.

The government review of the Legal Services Act needs to give clients of unregulated providers access to the Legal Ombudsman so as to close off a “competitive advantage” enjoyed by those that are regulated, the complaints body said this week.

The Legal Services Board is set to instruct the frontline regulators like the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board to get tough with lawyers who do not handle client complaints properly. Draft guidance published for consultation yesterday said that they could stage “supervisory interventions” into poorly performing firms.

Law firms should be required by their regulators to publish details of complaints and average prices on their websites, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has said. The panel also called for the publication of firms’ litigation outcomes and success rates.

The number of complaints about lawyers has fallen to its lowest level since the opening of the Legal Ombudsman, its much-delayed annual report and accounts have shown. The delay was caused by the continuing problems with LeO’s accounts, which for the second year running have been qualified by the National Audit Office over nearly £250,000 paid to staff in benefits.

The Legal Ombudsman has set out plans for further cuts in the amount it spends on complaints about law firms, but more on claims management companies. LeO also warned that the Ministry of Justice was imposing “increasingly restrictive spending controls”.

The number of complaints to the Legal Ombudsman about claims management companies is gathering pace and passed 15,000 in the first nine months of 2015, it has emerged. LeO said almost half of the complaints were about fees.

The Office for Legal Complaints is to put in place a new performance plan for the Legal Ombudsman next year to tackle falling standards, it has emerged. Steve Green, chair of the OLC, promised things would be on an “upward trajectory” next year.

In a further twist to an already complicated saga, the Legal Ombudsman has decided not to become a certified alternative dispute resolution body for the time being. Certification would double LeO’s deadline for complaints from six to 12 months.