How to complain about your lawyer

Please note that the Legal Services Board does not handle complaints about lawyers and cannot intervene in any new or ongoing complaint or dispute.

If you have a complaint about the service you received from your lawyer, you should first make a formal complaint to your lawyer or law firm. Tips on how to complain to your lawyer are available on the Legal Ombudsman’s website.

If you are not satisfied by the way in which your complaint was dealt with by your lawyer of law firm, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman. You can do this by calling 0300 555 0333, emailing enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or writing to: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ.

The Legal Ombudsman is an independent service for resolving complaints about lawyers.

If you think your lawyer may have not conducted themselves in the correct manner, you should contact the body which regulates them listed below. The Legal Ombudsman will not investigate conduct matters, and any cases that they deem to be conduct issues will be passed to one of the appropriate regulatory bodies:

• Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for Solicitors.
• Bar Standards Board (BSB) for Barristers.
• Council of Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) for Licensed Conveyancers.
• ILEX Professional Standards (IPS) for Legal Executives
• Intellectual Property Regulation Board (IPreg)for the Patent Attorney and Trade Mark Attorney professions.
• Costs Lawyer Standards Board for Costs Lawyers.
• Master of Faculties for Notaries.
• Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) for probate services.