The Ombudsman's Corner

Our approach to offers made at first tier When a consumer first brings a complaint to us, one of the first thing we do is to establish whether the service provider has made an offer

The Ombudsman's Corner

Our approach to dealing with matters arising from the administration of an estate When we changed our Scheme Rules in April, one change that we made was to make it clear that we accept complaints

The Ombudsman's Corner

Our approach to dealing with complaints about delay Along with poor communication, delays are the most common area of complaint that the Legal Ombudsman receives – last year, 21% of complaints that we investigated were

The Ombudsman's Corner

Can the Legal Ombudsman look into complaints about negligence? A common enquiry I receive from service providers through our Technical Advice service is whether we can investigate complaints about negligence. Specifically, complaints in which the

The Ombudsman's Corner

Our approach to unbundling The idea of “unbundling” legal services has been discussed in the sector for several years. In a nutshell, it’s where a service provider takes on only those aspects of work that

The Ombudsman's Corner

An issue that all ombudsman schemes face is that it is difficult to forecast the level of demand on its service. During the pandemic most schemes saw an increase in demand for two reasons –

The Ombudsman's Corner

This month, I want to talk about our Technical Advice service. We are committed to being accessible to our stakeholders, so we decided to set up a dedicated email address technical.advice@legalombudsman.org.uk in November 2021 for

The Ombudsman's Corner

When we recently updated our Scheme Rules, we made an amendment to Section 2 – “Who can complain about what”, to include a new section which clarifies that a complaint can be brought to us

The Ombudsman's Corner

I recently attended a conference at which I had an interesting conversation with a legal insurance broker, who told me that cyber insurance remains one of the most popular insurance policies with legal providers –

In my last column I set out details of the changes we are making to our Scheme Rules on 1st April 2023 with regards to the circumstances in which we can dismiss a complaint. This

Happy New Year everyone and welcome to the first “Ombudsman’s Corner” of 2023. In the last column, I set out details of the changes we are making to our Scheme Rules on 1st April 2023

In my last column, I explained how and why our Scheme Rules are changing on 1st April 2023, setting out the main changes – our time limits, our discretion to dismiss or discontinue complaints which

Legal Ombudsman’s Scheme Rules April 2023 Aside from a couple of minor amendments and additions made back in 2012, our Scheme Rules have not changed from the date that I started my career at the

Release of file as a remedy to resolve a complaint We are often asked by complainants to direct their service provider to release papers to them – either specific documents, or their entire file of

At the Legal Ombudsman, we have recently carried out some research to gain a better understanding of the quality and transparency of online complaints information on service providers’ websites. We wanted to understand how easy

When I speak to service providers I often get asked to advise them on what their approach should be if, having received a complaint from a client, they find that things had gone wrong and

I am delighted to be writing the first of what will be a monthly column in which I talk about complaints, complaints handling, what we are seeing at the Legal Ombudsman, the way that we

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