Escalation – Next Steps

This page helps you think calmly about whether – and how – to escalate a complaint from the law firm’s internal process to the Legal Ombudsman (or a similar body).

This is general information, not legal advice. Always check the Legal Ombudsman’s own website (or the relevant scheme in your jurisdiction) for current rules, time limits and eligibility.

On this page

If you need the full internal-complaint steps first, return to: Complaints →

1. Check whether the Ombudsman can consider your complaint

The Legal Ombudsman can only look at certain types of complaints and only if certain time limits and conditions are met. Before you spend time preparing, check the basic eligibility rules on the Ombudsman’s website.

How this links to Core Guidance:

Escalation works best when your complaint is calm, factual and supported by evidence. These principles come from: Preparing Evidence for a Formal Complaint, Tone and Behaviour, and When Things Start to Go Wrong.

If you are not eligible for the Ombudsman, there may still be other options, such as:

  • Using the firm’s complaints process again in a more focused way
  • Reporting serious conduct concerns to the relevant regulator
  • In some cases, considering independent legal advice about other remedies

2. Check time limits and “final response” status

The Ombudsman will usually expect you to have:

  • Given the firm a fair chance to deal with your complaint internally, and
  • Either received a clear final response, or waited for a certain period without one.

Time limits can change. Always rely on the Ombudsman’s own published information.

3. Decide if the Ombudsman is the right route

The Legal Ombudsman mainly looks at service complaints. Serious professional misconduct may need to be reported to a regulator.

Depending on your issue, escalation may involve the Legal Ombudsman (poor service) and/or a regulator (professional misconduct).

4. Get your timeline, evidence and logs ready

Tools that help:

5. Build your Ombudsman-ready summary

Open Ombudsman Complaint Builder →

Keep your summary factual: dates, what happened, what you asked the firm to do, and what their final response was.

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