- The conduct of your entity or the conduct of a person at your entity; or
- The service you provide to your clients
Conduct complaints (breaches of the CILEx Code of Conduct)
Conduct complaints or other information received about the conduct of your entity, or the conduct of a person at your practice are investigated by CILEx Regulation. Conduct will be assessed against the CILEx Code of Conduct which you can access here.
Breaches of the Code of Conduct may include providing legal advice when not authorised to do so, failing to comply with a court order, misappropriation of client money or failing to pay your entity’s professional indemnity insurance.
CILEx Regulation cannot deal with complaints about the service you or someone at your entity provided – see below. The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) may refer matters to CILEx Regulation if it considers that the service complaint discloses conduct issues about the entity.
Service complaints
Service complaints relate to the quality of the service the entity provides to clients. Service issues include allegations about delay, failure to keep your clients updated on progress of their cases, or issues relating to client costs.
All entities must have an in-house complaints handling procedure which you and your staff should provide to clients when first instructed or as soon as practicable. If a client has a complaint about the service you or someone at your entity has provided they must submit their complaint in accordance with your complaints procedure. They should do this before they contact LeO.
If the complaint is not dealt with satisfactorily, the complainant can refer their service complaint to LeO. You should provide contact details for LeO to your client at the same time as you provide information about your entity’s own complaints handling procedure. Further details can be found on the LeO website.
CILEx Regulation has developed guidance for you on complaints handling which can be found here.
