Refreshed guidance for signposting customers to the Legal Ombudsman

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and Legal Ombudsman (LeO) research into first tier complaints handling showed that there could be improvements in how some law firms deal with complaints. Nine out of ten firms see business benefit to dealing with complaints well, yet only a third of surveyed firms reported providing details on LeO to clients at the end of the complaints procedure, despite it being a regulatory requirement to do so.

We have refreshed our signposting guidance to support legal service providers in referring their customers to LeO at the time of engagement and again at the end of the complaints process.

This guidance includes why signposting is important, which stages of the complaints process it is required and suggested text to use.

The refreshed signposting guidance can be found here.

The research into the experiences and effectiveness of solicitors’ first tier complaints handling can be found here.