Stories from our annual report...

Mixing, matching and confusing
As I have said, consumer confusion is exacerbated by the difficulties in understanding the increasingly complex structures involved in the delivery of legal services. One of the reasons behind the creation of the Legal Ombudsman was the recognition that legal services provision was often a team effort involving individuals and entities from different parts of the profession and beyond.
It was in recognition of this that we were given the power to resolve complaints about any sort of lawyer – solicitor, barrister, legal executive, licensed conveyancer, notary, cost lawyer, trade mark attorney, patent attorney. Indeed, there have already been cases where this has proved valuable:


Mr J was convicted of burglary in November 2009. He'd apparently entered a house and stolen a mobile phone. He was also found guilty on two counts of common assault, following a struggle with his wife and her lover at the address in question. He claims he was living at the house at the time. He'd come home unexpectedly one afternoon, let himself in with his own keys and gone upstairs, only to find his wife in bed with another man. A bit of a tussle ensued. Mr J then took his wife's phone, left the house and phoned his mother to ask her to collect his children. His wife, meanwhile, had called the police, who promptly showed up and arrested Mr J on the spot.

Mr J's complaint was that neither the duty solicitor at the time nor the barrister had done their jobs properly and that, as a consequence, he was wrongly convicted. His keys were produced in court, along with a copy of the tenancy agreement, to prove that Mr J had a right to enter his own home. But at least two witnesses who could testify to his version of events were never called, despite the fact that the solicitor knew who they were and how to contact them. Adding insult to injury, the solicitor failed to appear in court on the day as well. The barrister requested a half day adjournment to bring a witness in to court, but this was refused. Mr J was convicted.

Following a complaint to us, the solicitor agreed to pay £250 for not dealing with Mr J's concerns properly through his own, in-house complaints procedure first. The solicitor also agreed to meet Mr J and the missing witnesses and draft their statements. Both he and the barrister involved – who also accepts he should have got the case adjourned for this very purpose – will be assisting Mr J in making an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, all free of charge.

However, although the way our jurisdiction is constructed has improved the ability to offer a joined-up response to complaints about services by a team of regulated legal professionals, it is not so helpful in enabling us to deal with cases where the service has involved both regulated and unregulated entities. Some of these structures, whether accidentally or by design, have the effect of taking the complaint outside our jurisdiction. For example:


Mr K's wife passed away. Mr K then looked for help to execute his wife's will and with the administration of her estate. He shopped around, and chose to go with a firm offering online wills and probate services, thinking that their quote of around £2,500 seemed reasonable.

The company came to his home to speak to him to explain what they would do and how much it would cost. Mr K agreed to go ahead and the company started with the administration. When the work was drawing to an end, Mr K received the final bill and found that it was nearly double the amount he had been quoted. He raised his concern with the company. Their response was to refuse to complete the work until the full amount of the bill was paid. Mr K was told that the additional amount was for 'third party' costs. Although he had signed an agreement which included this information, Mr K said that he was not told this explicitly by the company when they visited him to explain their service.

Mr K came to us with his complaint. When we looked into it, the company told us that they didn't carry out reserved legal activities themselves – in short, no one in the company is a lawyer regulated by one of the legal regulators. Instead, the company is structured so that they use a third party firm of solicitors to apply for the 'grant of probate' (which allows an executor to distribute assets as detailed in a person's will). These were the 'third party' services that were in Mr K's agreement.

Technically, this complaint was outside our jurisdiction as Mr K had employed this company and not a lawyer to do this work. However, once we were involved, the company did agree to contact Mr K again to attempt to resolve the complaint. And they have now offered to waive the third party costs, taking the final bill much closer to the original quote that Mr K had received.


This sort of subcontracting structure appears increasingly common. It will be important that the issues it creates are kept closely under review by the regulatory authorities so that the dangers of widespread injustice are avoided.

Difficulties in understanding the extent to which the legal services being complained about have been provided by a regulated or unregulated organisation are particularly pronounced where those services have been delivered via the internet. Given the move of services from high street to web, it's not surprising to find a growing number of entirely web-based legal service organisations coming to market.

These include services which use the internet to attract customers and elicit information. But they then provide largely generic documents for matters such as divorce or tribunal proceedings. There are firms as well that offer 'expert' advice on a wide range of issues, often by 'bundling' them with other professional services, such as financial services or insurance. Many of these are backed by large corporations.

Naturally enough, consumers expect to receive the same standard of care from these online offerings as they would from the high street lawyer. But in some cases this expectation is not met:


Mr L filled in an online form with a web-based legal provider and paid the fee of £97.00. For this amount he was getting a cohabitation agreement written by a qualified solicitor.

The first copy of the agreement Mr L received was made up of five clauses, three of which were dramatically incorrect. Mr L called them up and told them which parts were wrong. They agreed to send out another copy. After some time, exactly the same document was received - with no changes.

Mr L complained again and an amended document was issued. But he found the fifth clause was still incorrect. Following yet another complaint, Mr L again received a copy of the original, incorrect draft of the agreement.

It was never explained to Mr L whether or not he was speaking to a qualified solicitor who was responsible for writing the document. Mr L asked for a copy of the firm's complaints procedure and was directed to a website, where a complaint form could be completed online. He duly completed the form. In response, he was offered 25% off the next service he bought from them. There was no way to respond to this offer, so Mr L had once again to complete the online complaint form, this time asking for his money back. The firm replied saying that, since Mr L had 'accessed the software', no refund was possible. Confused and cross, he contacted the Legal Ombudsman for help.

The company challenged the Ombudsman's jurisdiction but, following the Ombudsman's intervention, Mr L did receive a full refund.


As with many of the cases highlighted above, it is difficult for the Legal Ombudsman to assess whether a complaint falls within our jurisdiction - to understand whether the legal service is being provided by a law firm or by a lay organisation. If it is the latter, we have to see if there was sufficient involvement on the part of a regulated lawyer to bring it within our scheme. And if we – as the experts – have to agonise, what hope is there to break through the confusion even for the best-informed consumer?