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The aim of this guide is to give you a clear understanding of the complaints process if you wish to make a customer service complaint

If you are unhappy with the customer service you have received from us, here is how to complain.

This service is also available in Welsh (Cymraeg)

Complaints about our customer service

We are committed to providing a high standard of customer service to all our customers and aim to address complaints about our service as quickly as possible. When you raise a service complaint, we will try to put things right and learn from your experience to make improvements. 

Who can make a service complaint?

A complaint can be made by anyone in receipt of our customer service, including the lawyer or a representative of either party.

What is a service complaint?

A service complaint is when you tell us that you are unhappy with the customer service we have provided to you. You can complain about things such as if we have:

  • been rude to you.
  • not met your reasonable adjustment needs.
  • caused unnecessary delay and/or have not kept you updated.
  • failed to respond to your calls/emails/letters.
  • not followed our own process.

What is not a service complaint?

There are some things we cannot consider as a service complaint. For example, if you:

  • are unhappy with the decision made.
  • disagree with the evidence considered.
  • disagree with the complaints that we have said we can deal with, or how we have worded those complaints.
  • If you are unhappy with a deadline set.
  • If you believe our decision making has been biased.
  • if you believe you have been discriminated against, or that we have failed to adhere to a law or Iegislation.

These complaints will be addressed as part of our usual escalation of a lawyer complaint in line with our usual process. Once an ombudsman has made a decision, that can only be challenged under the recognised grounds for judicial review. Service of any legal claims should be addressed to our Legal Team directly. 

If you need to send a claim to us, please email the legal documents to legalteam@legalombudsman.org.uk

If you are unable to send documents via email, you can send them via post to: 

The Legal Team,
PO Box 6168
SLOUGH
SL1 9EL

Please only use these contact details to send documents that are related to anticipated or ongoing legal proceedings against the Legal Ombudsman.

When we might not look at your service complaint

There may be times when we may decide it is not appropriate to investigate your service complaint, and/or may decide to discontinue an investigation at any stage of the process, as set out below:

  • If you do not co-operate with our staff or our process, behave unreasonably, or do not send us information we have asked for.
  • If the remedy you are seeking is not one that can be achieved through this process.

Should this happen, we will let you know and explain why we have reached this decision, and you will be given the opportunity to respond.

The decision of whether to investigate your service complaint is at our discretion.

When to make a service complaint?

If you want to complain about the customer service you have received, tell us as soon as possible or within two months of your complaint about the lawyer being closed.  Any complaints raised outside of this timescale will not be considered unless there are exceptional circumstances which meant you could not raise it within this time. The decision on whether to extend our time limits will be at our discretion. 

Please note if your lawyer complaint is still open, it will continue whilst your service complaint is being considered. 

How you can make a service complaint

If you have a concern about our customer service, please tell the person who is dealing with your lawyer complaint if it is still open. They will be happy to assist and may be able to resolve your concerns straight away, without the need to raise a formal complaint.

If they are unable to resolve your concern and you wish to raise a service complaint, then please fill in our online service complaint form. This will be automatically sent to our Service Complaints Team and acknowledged within 10 working days. 

How we will deal with your service complaint

Stage 1 - Team leader/customer experience specialist review

In the majority of cases, a complaint about our service can be resolved with the assistance of a team leader . A team leader will consider your concerns and, if upheld, they can arrange for actions to be taken to remedy the situation quickly. 

Where a complaint is more complex or a detailed investigation is required, a customer experience specialist will complete a review of your service complaint . 

Once we have confirmed the service complaints to be investigated, we will not add new complaints that we consider you would have been aware of at the beginning.

The team leader or customer experience specialist will confirm the outcome of their review to you, and you will be invited to accept or reject that outcome within one month. Should we receive no response within one month, this will be regarded as a withdrawal of the service complaint and we will close your complaint file, taking no further action.

Stage 2 - Customer experience manager review

If the team leader or customer experience specialist has not been able to resolve your complaint, you can ask for one of our customer experience managers to carry out a review. They will consider the response given to you at stage 1, together with any comments provided by you as to why you are still unhappy and will provide our final response to your complaint.

You will have one month from the date of their response to decide whether you wish to accept or reject it, or to escalate your complaint to the next stage of the process. Should we receive no response within one month, this will be regarded as a withdrawal of the service complaint and we will close your complaint file, taking no further action. 

Stage 3 – Service complaint adjudicator review

If you are still unhappy after receiving a response from a customer experience manager, you can ask for your complaint to be reviewed by the service complaint adjudicator. 

This is the final stage of our service complaint process and there is no further right of appeal.

How can we resolve your complaint?

If we uphold your complaint, we will consider what the impact has been and offer you an appropriate remedy. This may be:

  • An apology.
  • An explanation for why something went wrong and/or what we intend to do or fix it.
  • Financial compensation to acknowledge a significant emotional impact or direct financial loss.

We will decide what remedy is appropriate by referring to our guidance, ‘Putting things right: our approach to remedies’. This is the same guidance our investigators/ombudsmen use when deciding remedies for complaints about a lawyer. As we hold ourselves to the same service standards that we expect from a lawyer, it is only fair that we use the same guidance to decide the level of remedy . A copy of this guidance can be found here: Guidance: Our approach to putting things right | Legal Ombudsman

We will also ensure that we learn from your experience. This can include staff feedback; training; increased supervision; or improvements to our external or internal guidance.

What we cannot do

As the service complaint investigation process is separate from the investigation into a lawyer complaint, we are unable to get involved or influence those decisions. This means that we are unable to:

  • Change the outcome of your lawyer complaint or any decisions that have been made.
  • Change the investigator or overturn a team leader’s decision not to change the investigator.
  • Change or extend the time limits set by our investigators and/or ombudsman.

How long will it take?

The time it takes us to complete a review at each stage in our service complaints process depends on the complexity of your complaint, along with the demand on our service at any time. We will let you know how long it may take once your complaint reaches each stage.

Further important information

Please note that our calls may be recorded for training and monitoring purposes.

Information on how we handle data can be found on our website here: Privacy | Legal Ombudsman

We are committed to making sure the way we work doesn’t put you at a disadvantage so in addition to our legal duty to provide reasonable adjustments for disabled people, if you need any help or support, please tell us about it and we will do our best to meet your needs. We also understand that your circumstances might change, along with the support that you need, so please let us know at any time and we will consider your request. 

Make a Customer Service Complaint