Complaints: AI making them longer and more complex
Existing approaches to legal services complaints handling “might not be suited to the challenges posed” by the age of artificial intelligence (AI), the Law Society has warned.
The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) “may have to revise its approach” as use of AI continued to expand and “a growing proportion of complaints may be less conducive to early resolution”.
Responding to a consultation on LeO’s model complaints resolution procedure (MCRP), the society said the complaints process was becoming more complex as a result of greater use of AI by complainants.
“Anecdotal evidence suggests that such AI-assisted complaints are often longer and more complex, may contain inaccuracies and, even when appropriately dealt with, are challenged.
“Firms need guidance on how to deal with complaints such as these, which may often border on the vexatious.
“There needs to be an acknowledgement that the current approach to complaints might not be suited to the challenges posed in the AI age and that LeO may have to revise its approach as a consequence.”
Use of AI could increase the time required to identify the consumer’s “genuine concerns, which are frequently obscured by irrelevant or extraneous material”.
As the use of AI continued to expand, “a growing proportion of complaints may be less conducive to early resolution”.
Under the draft MCRP, law firms must acknowledge complaints within five working days, deal with them through early resolution in a further 10 days or launch a full investigation, which could take the total time spent handling the complaint to a maximum of eight weeks.
In a pilot, 57% of the complaints were resolved under the early resolution procedure and on average this took seven days. Only 3% of the 631 complaints handled under the pilot were escalated to LeO.
However, the Law Society said that only 10 legal service providers took part in the three-month pilot and there was no detail on their type and size, making it “difficult to gauge whether the pilot is sufficiently robust to make the claim that the MCRP can be used by all service providers who fall under LeO’s remit”.
The MCRP reflected “existing good practice already followed by many well-run firms, raising questions about how LeO intends to drive adoption where standards are weakest”.
The response went on: “Without a clear strategy to encourage uptake of the MCRP, support implementation and apply proportionate oversight, there is a real risk that the model is taken up only by a limited number of firms, reducing its potential to drive sector-wide improvement.”
Smaller firms, sole practitioners and chambers may struggle with the additional administrative discipline required, the society said, particularly around mandatory acknowledgement timescales and documentation.
“Addressing these barriers may require targeted support, and proportionate expectations of some providers.”
The society added that, “given the lack of consumer feedback during the pilot, testing and iterative refinement of consumer guidance will be important post-launch. It is unfortunate that the proposed consumer templates were not available for review.”
Mark Evans, president of the Law Society, commented: “We support LeO’s efforts to improve complaints handling and enhance consumer confidence. A more transparent framework has the potential to promote earlier and proportionate resolution of complaints.
“However, effective implementation will depend less on the articulation of the model itself and more on the guidance and templates around it.
“Safeguards are needed to ensure early resolution is correctly applied and does not prioritise speed or commerciality over fairness. This is particularly important in complex, sensitive or vulnerable client cases.”
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