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The Legal Ombudsman is supposed to offer a route for resolving complaints about legal services. Yet, crucial limitations make the service feel ineffective for many consumers.

The Legal Ombudsman will not investigate complaints where a solicitor has been negligent. So what exactly is the point of this service??? So a lawyer can give bad advice, loose their clients money paying the other sides legal costs and still keep their legal fees?

The Legal Ombudsman also refuse to consider complaints if a law firm initiates court proceedings against their client. This creates a significant loophole: for example, if a client withholds balance of legal fees due to bad legal advice and the law firm responds by filing a money claim, the Ombudsman will not take up the case, even if the court is willing to pause the proceedings pending the Legal Ombudsman’s decision.

In these situations, the only option left is to sue for negligence, an incredibly costly and risky step for most consumers.

Consumers are left without justice when lawyers provide poor advice.

Taking a solicitor to court is financially out of reach for many people. Even if you proceed, lawyers typically continue billing at £250 to £500 per hour throughout the process. Clients bear the financial and emotional burden, while lawyers keep profiting, often with no consequences for poor advice or service.

Where is the justice in that?

Compare this to the medical profession: if a doctor performs an unnecessary procedure, they can face disciplinary action, prosecution, and compensation claims for medical negligence. But if a solicitor advises a client to pursue or defend a claim that lacks merit, there are usually no consequences. The client is left to deal with the emotional and financial toll, including months of stress and hundreds of hours lost on paperwork. A system that only benefits the lawyers and they keep earning fees.

For a profession that prides itself on ethics and integrity, accountability can be alarmingly weak.

Despite rising solicitor fees, quality is not guaranteed. Senior partners charge premium rates but often delegate most of the work to newly qualified lawyers they are baby sitting. These junior lawyers are often overwhelmed, focused on billing targets, and may lack the experience needed to handle complex issues. They have a superficial understanding of case files.

When solicitors, lacks experience in a legal area, they simply refer the matter to "counsel" (barrister), all at the client's expense. If a solicitor charges £450 per hour, why should the client really be paying for what the solicitor doesn’t know??

Legal directories like The Legal 500 offer no meaningful assurance of quality either.

To rebuild public trust, the Legal Ombudsman or the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) should publish complaint statistics for individual law firms and solicitors. Many clients are afraid to leave negative reviews online or are unsure whether they have grounds to complain.

The legal system often feels rigged. Lawyers play “paper tennis,” where each letter sent costs £450. Months can be wasted generating documents and correspondence that few people read, only for the case to settle before reaching court, as solicitors frequently advise clients to avoid trial.

As the saying goes: in legal disputes, the only true winners are the lawyers. It is designed for them to be rich at the expense of society.

The legal profession is worth £90bn. How much of their work is "real" value to the economy? It’s time to simplify legal processes so more people can resolve disputes without expensive legal representation. Justice should be accessible. The legal system should serve the public, not just the profession.

In 2023, the Legal Ombudsman received over 7,000 complaints, but only a small fraction resulted in substantial redress for clients.