The Legal Ombudsman has given its strongest indication yet that it will publish case decisions in full – but not until next year at the earliest.
The complaints handler consulted earlier this year on changes to its publication policy, potentially moving away from only publishing data about complaints to publishing full details of each case.
The organisation currently publishes details of selected cases only where there are public interest issues or opportunities to learn from law firms’ mistakes.
In the drive for greater transparency – for which consumer groups are lobbying heavily – this is no longer considered sufficient. While LeO has yet to formally respond to the consultation, it published a question-and-answer article yesterday with chief ombudsman Phil Cain where the proposal was strongly endorsed.
Cain rejected the argument that publication could unfairly affect some legal service providers and said the current policy of publishing data was not enough.
