Complaint: LeO jurisdiction challenge
A law firm has won permission to judicially review a decision by the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) to award a former client £66,000 in compensation and refunded or waived legal fees.
Andrew Kinnier KC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, said it was arguable [1] that LeO lacked jurisdiction on the grounds that aspects of the complaint against East London firm Law Lane Solicitors had not first been considered under its own complaints procedure.
The firm’s “poor compliance with case management directions and its exacerbating failures to apply for relief or to provide any explanation for its various defaults” had tended to point against granting the renewed JR application.
“That said, past failings can be addressed by a costs order and future compliance can be achieved by sanctions such as an unless order.
“Viewing the case overall, notwithstanding the weight of the contrary factors, the fact that the claimant has an arguable ground of challenge and the consequential prejudice should it not be allowed to argue its case at a full hearing, tip (but only just) the balance in favour of allowing the application.”
The High Court heard that Maisour Gram instructed Law Lane in March 2018 to help him recover funds he had invested in a business. The claim succeeded in December 2020 and the other side was ordered to repay the investment and pay his costs.
However, Mr Gram lodged a formal complaint with Law Lane on in August 2022, to which the law firm responded later that month. The next day, Mr Gram complained to LeO.
LeO accepted three matters for investigation – a dispute over what fixed fee had been agreed and who owed whom, an alleged failure to recover £80,000 in costs Mr Gram said the court had awarded him, and a dispute of an invoice for £15,000 sent in the absence of any agreement over post-judgment work.
An investigator upheld the complaint but Law Lane disagreed, so it went to an ombudsman for final decision.
In February 2025, the ombudsman gave a provisional decision, “a step which was prompted by his decision to change the wording of some of the complaints”, the judge recorded.
The ombudsman later upheld the complaint but for different reasons from the investigator. In those circumstances, the parties were given an opportunity to provide further comment before a final decision was made in March.
The ombudsman found that the service provided was not reasonable and directed Law Lane to pay £66,320, made up of compensation, a refund of fees paid and a waiver of unpaid fees.
Law Lane only issued the claim on 1 July, outside the three-month time limit. It did not seek permission to issue late but did seek an extension to serve its detailed statement.
Last November, Marcus Pilgerstorfer KC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, found no good reason for the claim to have been issued out of time and in any event did not consider the arguments made arguable.
Law Lane renewed the application and Judge Kinnier held that the law firm’s jurisdictional ground in its challenge arguable, despite the “generous margin extended to the Legal Ombudsman’s exercise of his functions”.
This was that LeO could not deal with a complaint that had not first been submitted to and considered under Law Lane’s own complaints procedure – in particular, it had no jurisdiction to consider Mr Gram’s complaint that he had not authorised counsel’s fees.
But Law Lane’s submissions on procedural unfairness were not arguable, because it had the opportunity to make representations to LeO on how it reformulated the complaint.
Judge Kinnier said that, given various procedural breaches, he was minded to order – subject to submissions – that Law Lane be ordered to pay LeO’s costs of the renewal application.
For the same reason, he was also provisionally minded to make unless orders on Law Lane’s service of evidence in reply and on lodging its skeleton argument, breach of which would debar the firm from relying on them.