Naming & Shaming powers ‘reserved’ : Consumers ‘still in the dark’ on crooked lawyers as identities of rogue solicitors & law firms yet to be published by Legal Ombudsman

Much promisedNaming & shaming of rogue lawyers yet to happen in England & WalesMORE THANTWO YEARS after much debate and numerous consultations which received widespread support from consumer groups and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) for the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) of England & Wales to name & shame rogue solicitors & law firms in published complaints data, the policy decision taken by the LeO in April 2012 to publish the identities of lawyers involved in client complaints, has not yet resulted in publication of a single solicitor or law firm’s identity.

Shedding some light on the lack of publication of lawyer’s names to-date, the latest annual report covering 2012-1013 from the Legal Ombudsman states “In one of the key decisions taken during the year related to the publication of the statistics about ombudsman decisions. While there was general agreement that it was desirable for us…