How to Complain
What you need to know
You must first of all give your legal practitioner the chance to resolve your complaint. If you have not done so, we will ask you to make the complaint to them and it will be recorded by us as premature. We will also write to the practitioner to tell them we have done this. A practitioner is someone who is a solicitor, advocate, commercial attorney, conveyancing or executry practitioner.
If your practitioner is unable to resolve the complaint, you should send it to the SLCC. We deal with three types of complaint; service complaints, conduct complaints and handling complaints.
What kind of complaint do you have?
There are different types of complaints about legal practitioners and you can read a brief description of what they are below. This will help you to select the complaint form which is appropriate to your complaint.
If you would like advice about making a complaint from a member of our Gateway Team, you can call them on 0131 528 5111, send a fax on 0131 528 5110 or by email at enquiries@scottishlegalcomplaints.org.uk.
Service Complaint
Conduct Complaint
You can complain about service, conduct or both
Handling Complaint
Important Time Limits
If your complaint is about conduct or service pre-1 October 2008
Service Complaint
This is about the quality of work a practitioner has carried out, or which you think should have been carried out, during the course of a transaction. The SLCC can investigate service complaints where the practitioner was instructed after 1 October 2008.
Conduct Complaint
This is about a practitioner's behaviour, their fitness to carry out work and how they have behaved either in carrying out a transaction or outside of business. We pass complaints about conduct to the relevant professional body and these are the Law Society of Scotland (LSS), Faculty of Advocates (F o A) or Association of Commercial Attorneys (ACA). Complaints about the conduct of conveyancing and executry practitioners are passed to the Law Society of Scotland as they are responsible for their regulation under the Public Appointments and Public Bodies (Scotland) Act 2003.
You can complain about service, conduct or both
If you are unsure of the type of your complaint, you can fill in the complaint form and we will assess what type of complaint you have. If you would like to speak to someone about your complaint, you can telephone a member of our Gateway Team on 0131 528 5111 or you can email them at enquiries@scottishlegalcomplaints.org.uk.
Handling Complaint
This is about the way a professional body has dealt with the investigation of a complaint about a practitioner's conduct. If you are not happy with how the investigation into your complaint has been carried out, and the conduct occurred on or after 1 October 2008, you can make a handling complaint to us and you can read more about this here.
Important Time Limits
Service or conduct complaints
You must contact the SLCC within 12 months of the service ending, or within 12 months of the date when you could reasonably have been made aware of the matter. If you make your complaint after the 12 month deadline has passed, it is unlikely that we will be able to consider your complaint unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Handling complaints
You must contact the SLCC about this type of complaint within 6 months of the date on which the professional body wrote to you with their decision. If you contact us after this date, we cannot consider your complaint.
If your complaint is about conduct which occurred, or service which was provided, pre-1 October 2008
These cases still come to the SLCC, but are considered under different legislation which is similar to that used by the former Scottish Legal Services Ombudsman or SLSO. If this describes your complaint, please ask for our guidance booklet.
Please note that while the SLCC can still consider how the professional body dealt with your complaint, we are unable to investigate the actual complaint.
Unacceptable actions
There are rare occasions when complainers pursue their
complaints in a way that can impede their investigation or have
significant impact on the SLCC. The 
Unacceptable
Actions Policy (PDF 47.3KB) sets out our approach to the
relatively few occasions when we consider an
individual's actions or behaviour to be unacceptable.
For more information you can call us on 0131 528 5111, send a fax to 0131 528 5110 or email us at enquiries@scottishlegalcomplaints.org.uk
