Over time, a complaints handler amasses a huge amount of information. Spending a little time and energy on analysis helps gain an understanding of who complains and who they complain about.

There is a common misconception that sole practitioners generate the majority of complaints. This is not true. While 44% of firms are sole practitioners and largely carry out the sort of private client work that could lead to consumer complaints, they only generate 8% of complaints received by the Legal Complaints Service. As sole practitioners employ 9% of UK solicitors, this is quite proportionate.

We receive very few complaints originating from large firms, despite their employing more than 40% of solicitors in the UK. The work of these firms tends to be mainly commercial, providing us with 14% of our receipts.

Most complaints by far originate from small to medium-sized firms. More than half are generated by firms with fewer than 10 partners, and nearly a quarter originated from firms with 11-25 partners. In such firms, the complaint levels are disproportionately high – for example, 15% of solicitors work in firms with 5-10 partners, and yet 27% of our complaints are generated from such firms.

What we don’t know is why this is the case. The medium-sized law firm has always been the most challenging of business models, as it is often insufficiently large to support an infrastructure, but large enough for client care to be less visible. It is here where care needs to be taken.

Another common preconception is that most complaints include conduct issues. Of the more than 78,000 complaints received since 2004, 73% related to poor service, with only 24% about misconduct and 3% about the bill. It supports the decision taken by the Law Society in 2006 to separate the handling of service complaints from conduct complaints – by far the majority of service complaints can be dealt with quickly and easily.

A common concern of the legal profession is that most complaints are unjustified. In reality, about one-third of our complaints are not upheld (31%). Of the rest, 28% of all complaints in this period were conciliated, with a further 7% being upheld at adjudication.

Until recently, the area of law generating most complaints was residential conveyancing (24%), followed by general civil law (16%), probate (10%) and matrimonial law (9.4%). However, the recession has lead to a significant drop in residential conveyancing complaints (18%), and it has been overtaken by civil complaints. While there is undoubtedly a tendency for more conveyancing transactions to be aborted, which increases the risk of a complaint, this indicates that the number of conveyancing complaints is largely proportionate to the number of transactions in the market.

Our research revealed a number of gender differences: while the profile of callers who ring our helpline is 49% male and 50% female, indications are that slightly more men (55%) then choose to make the complaints formal. Moving forward with the complaint, men are slightly less likely to conciliate, and tend to have more of their complaints not upheld.

The gender differences also exist with solicitors. Male solicitors are far more likely to be complained about than female solicitors – 74% of all our complaints are about male solicitors, despite them representing 56% of the profession. Once complaints are made, however, there is no disproportionality of outcome – male and female solicitors are equally likely to have complaints upheld or not upheld.

We also saw a higher percentage of black and minority ethnic complainants coming to us compared with the general population. This certainly shows us to be accessible, but also raised a concern – why are there more complaints than expected? We do not know the ethnicity profile of the users of law firms, and the census data may indeed be out of date. Without further analysis, we shouldn’t assume that BME clients of law firms are more likely to have received a poor service, as it could just be a reflection of the increasing diversity of our community.

Deborah Evans is chief executive of the Legal Complaints Service