Tag Results

The new Legal Ombudsman (LeO) service is set to turn away the rash of complaints about the way certain law firms have been pursuing alleged filesharers, it has emerged. However, it is instead referring them on to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The Legal Complaints Service (LCS) closed its doors to new complaints yesterday with 3,718 cases still live, its board heard today. The LCS was almost exactly on its projected work-in-progress figure for today, when the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) opened for business, with 2,340 ‘general’ complaints still outstanding. Almost all the other 1,378 open complaints relate to mining clients of one particular firm.

The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) today reopened the debate about whether the details of complaints against lawyers should be published, including their names, with a strong endorsement from the Legal Services Consumer Panel that they should. In a discussion paper that seeks views on how it should approach the publication of complaints data, LeO says a naming policy could benefit consumers and lawyers, but that there could be unintended negative consequences too.

With a month to go until the Legal Ombudsman opens for business, I went up to Birmingham last week to see how things are shaping up. So, how are the profession’s millions being spent?

The performance of the Legal Complaints Service (LCS) will provide a solid foundation from which the Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) can build, the Legal Services Ombudsman said today.