Legal Ombudsman complaints: what firms must do

What the Legal Ombudsman does

LeO was established under the Legal Services Act 2007 and opened in October 2010, taking over from the Legal Complaints Service. It handles service complaints: poor communication, delay, costs failures, work not done properly. It is not the SRA, and the distinction matters. LeO looks at whether the service was reasonable; the SRA looks at whether professional obligations were breached. A single set of facts can produce both, and LeO can refer a firm to its regulator where complaint handling was unreasonable.

Its jurisdiction is wider than most firms assume. Under Scheme Rules 2.8(a) and 2.8(d), the complainant does not have to be your client. Someone receiving the benefit of a service without instructing you or paying your fees still falls within jurisdiction, and beneficiaries can complain about the administration of an estate or trust even where the lawyer is also the executor or trustee. Firms lose jurisdiction challenges on this point regularly.

Successor practices should note Rule 2.10. Where firm A ceases to exist and firm B succeeds to substantially the whole of its business, A’s acts and omissions become B’s, and outstanding complaints against A become complaints against B, unless an ombudsman decides that would not be fair and reasonable. Acquiring a book of business means acquiring its complaints.

First-tier complaints: the eight-week rule

A client must ordinarily give you the opportunity to resolve the complaint through your own procedure first. Rule 4.2(a) then gives them the right to refer it to LeO if eight weeks pass without resolution.

The practical consequence catches firms with layered procedures. If your process has three stages and only two have been completed within the eight weeks, the client can go to LeO anyway. They are not required to finish your third stage. A complaints procedure longer than the statutory clock does not extend the clock.

LeO also has discretion under Rules 4.2(b) and (c) to accept a complaint sooner than eight weeks, or without it having been raised with the firm at all, in exceptional circumstances or where the relationship has broken down beyond the prospect of resolution.

The time limit firms most often forfeit

There are two limits. Rule 4.5 gives the client one year from the act or omission, or one year from when they should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint. Rule 4.4 gives them six months from your written response.

The six-month limit is conditional, and this is where firms lose cases they thought were time-barred. It applies only if your written response prominently included all three of the following: an explanation that the Legal Ombudsman is available if the client remains dissatisfied, full contact details for LeO, and a warning that the complaint must be referred within six months of the date of the response.

LeO’s own worked example makes the point. A client complained about an invoice, the solicitor met her, then wrote explaining why the service had been reasonable, and she went to LeO seven months later. The firm asked LeO to dismiss the complaint as out of time. LeO refused. The information was in the firm’s complaints handling policy, which the client had received, but it was not in the written response itself, so the six-month limit never applied. The one-year limit under Rule 4.5 governed instead.

Putting the wording in your policy is not enough. It has to be in the response letter, prominently, every time. Rule 4.7 also lets an ombudsman extend any of these timescales in exceptional circumstances, so even a compliant letter is not an absolute guarantee.

The case fee, and the narrow route to avoiding it

This is the part firms most often misunderstand. The case fee is not charged where a complaint is closed as out of time or out of jurisdiction, or dismissed under Rule 5.7. For every other case accepted for investigation, the fee applies unless both parts of the two-part test in Rule 6.2 are met.

LeO is explicit that there is no discretion to waive the fee because only some complaints were upheld, because the service was found to be reasonable, or because the firm engaged fully with the investigation. Winning does not avoid the fee.

What can avoid it is demonstrably good first-tier handling. On part B of the test, LeO expects to see that the firm followed its own complaints procedure in substance and in timing, that the client was kept informed particularly about delay, that the handler gathered and considered all relevant information, that the response addressed every issue raised and was clear and evidenced, that service failures were openly accepted with a reasonable remedy offered, and that the tone stayed polite and professional. That list is effectively a specification for the response letter.

Complainants are never charged for using the service, even where the complaint is dismissed or not upheld (Rule 6.6).

How complaints are decided and what LeO can order

Rule 5.36 requires a complaint to be determined by reference to what the ombudsman considers fair and reasonable in all the circumstances. The phrase is not defined in the Legal Services Act 2007 or in the Scheme Rules, which frustrates firms wanting a bright line, but LeO publishes guidance on the factors it weighs.

The starting point for remedy is to put the complainant in the position they would have been in had the service been reasonable. Compensation for distress and inconvenience sits alongside financial loss, and LeO has pressed firms to take the human impact seriously: in 2024-25 it ordered compensation for emotional effects in more than 85% of cases where service fell below a reasonable standard. We covered that guidance in Legal Ombudsman: firms must compensate clients for emotional harm.

Firms can challenge jurisdiction under Rule 5.4, on standing, time limits or the Rule 5.7 dismissal grounds, but reasons must be given at the earliest opportunity. And where a firm does not co-operate or supply requested evidence, an ombudsman may draw inferences under Rule 5.24(g) and decide on the material available under Rule 5.24(f). Silence is not a neutral strategy.

Why this is getting harder

Demand on LeO is rising sharply. After an increase of almost 30% in 2025-26, the Office for Legal Complaints expects 17,675 new complaints in 2026-27, which is 174% above 2019-20 levels. The OLC has said this exceeds the service improvements already made and cannot be sustained under the current operating model, and its response includes a Model Complaints Resolution Procedure aimed at stopping complaints arising at all. We reported the plan in Legal Ombudsman faces record demand as reform plan announced.

For firms, the direction of travel is clear enough. More complaints, more pressure on LeO to push resolution back to first tier, and more attention on whether the firm’s own handling was adequate. The case fee test already rewards firms that get first-tier right; the reform programme is likely to sharpen that.