Tag Results
500 calls to Legal Ombudsman on day one
Thursday, 7 October 2010The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) received 497 calls on its first day, with the first complaints about a solicitor who missed a court date after going on holiday and not telling his client. Many of the complaints were rejected for various reasons, such as being out of time, but 22 investigations were opened on the first day, and 14 are awaiting allocation.
Tags: complaints, Legal Ombudsman
Posted in Client care, Legal Ombudsman, News
Legal Complaints Service closes doors with 3,718 cases still live
Wednesday, 6 October 2010The 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.
Tags: complaints, Legal Complaints Service, Legal Ombudsman
Posted in Legal Ombudsman, News
The final countdown
Wednesday, 6 October 2010Journalists love a good landmark and 6 October is a corker for those of us who get overly excited by legal services reform – the Legal Ombudsman opens today and in a year’s time, the first alternative business structure should open its doors. But is anyone keeping an eye on all the other reform agendas around litigation costs and funding to ensure that access to justice does not fall through the cracks?
Tags: ABS, Alternative business structures, external investment, Legal Ombudsman, legal process outsourcing, Legal Services Board, LeO, LPO
Posted in Blog
Barristers seek carve-outs from telling clients about complaints procedures
Wednesday, 29 September 2010Barristers need some carve-outs from the requirements to tell clients about their complaints procedure, the Legal Services Board is to be told. The Bar Standards Board suggests that the drafters did not understand the realities of barristers’ practice.
Tags: complaints, Legal Ombudsman, Legal Services Board
Posted in Barristers, Client care, Legal Ombudsman, News
Ombudsman asks: should we publish complaints? Consumer panel says “yes”
Tuesday, 28 September 2010The 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.
Tags: complaints, Legal Complaints Service, Legal Ombudsman, Legal Services Consumer Panel
Posted in Client care, Consumer panel, Legal Ombudsman, Regulation
Law firms will have eight weeks to resolve complaints before ombudsman can step in
Monday, 13 September 2010Lawyers will have a maximum of eight weeks to resolve complaints before the Legal Ombudsman will agree to investigate, the new service has confirmed, but it may ask them why they did not deal with them even quicker.
Tags: complaints, Legal Ombudsman
Posted in Client care, Legal Ombudsman, News, Regulation
SRA “forced” to require firms to tell existing clients about new rights to complain
Friday, 10 September 2010The Solicitors Regulation Authority has been forced “under duress” to approve a rule change under which solicitors will have to inform existing clients of their right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman, despite efforts to persuade the Legal Services Board to change its position.
Tags: Legal Ombudsman, Legal Ombudsman, Legal Services Board, Solicitors Code of Conduct, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in Client care, Legal Ombudsman, News, Solicitors
To publish or not? LeO reopens debate on naming and shaming firms over complaints
Monday, 6 September 2010The controversial prospect of publishing law firms’ complaints records will be put firmly back on the agenda with a consultation by the Legal Ombudsman, Legal Futures can report.
Tags: complaints, Legal Ombudsman, Legal Services Consumer Panel
Posted in Barristers, Client care, Legal Executives, Legal Ombudsman, News, Other lawyers, Solicitors
Out of the shadows – part 2
Tuesday, 10 August 2010Having recently taken a look at who is running the Legal Services Board, this week it is the turn of the board of the Office for Legal Complaints, which will oversee the Legal Ombudsman service. You will see there is at least two law firms in the land that will have no excuses if they fall foul of the new complaints regime because they have direct links with members of the board.
Tags: Legal Ombudsman, Legal Ombudsman
Posted in Blog
LSB sets out plans for levying its £25m running costs for 2010/11 on profession
Tuesday, 13 July 2010The Legal Services Board has set out its plans to recoup its running costs, and those of the Office for Legal Complaints, based on a per capita basis and of complaints against each part of the legal profession.
Tags: Bar Council, Institute of Legal Executives, Law Society, Legal Ombudsman, Legal Ombudsman, Legal Services Board
Posted in Barristers, Legal Executives, Legal Ombudsman, Legal Services Board, News, Other lawyers, Solicitors