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Lawyers have warned the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) that some clients will end up unrepresented if he adopts a complaints process that involves ‘naming and shaming’. Fear of reputational damage would have a chilling effect on taking on clients perceived to be ‘risky’ and adversely impact on lawyers whose social conscience led them to offer help, they said.

This is a blog I didn’t expect to write. We all know the independence of the legal profession from government is robust, right? In the summer I was speaking to Carolyn Lamm, the then president of the American Bar Association, about alternative business structures. When I asked if we had covered all of her concerns, she surprised me by raising the independence issue.

The Legal Ombudsman service needs to work out the limits of its jurisdiction “and quickly”, as new business models emerge, chief ombudsman Adam Sampson has said. Mr Sampson said that with the pace of legal services reform accelerating and the legal services market “rapidly moving away from a reliance on the high street solicitor” and towards new providers entering the market “with very different business models”, it is very important to consumers that LeO is clear about what is and is not within its jurisdiction.

Confusion in the rules around complaints means law firms are having to “err on the side of annoyance” by referring commercial clients to the Legal Ombudsman even though it does not have jurisdiction to deal with them, it has been claimed.

The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) will seek to determine complaints that cross over into professional negligence, it has emerged. Chief ombudsman Adam Sampson said that while its predecessor bodies, such as the Legal Complaints Service, would shy away from complaints about the quality of legal advice offered, the Legal Services Act “makes no mention of any such limitation of our powers”.