Our History
The SLCC was set up by the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007.
Before then, complaints about lawyers were dealt with by different professional bodies - the Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Advocates.
Complaints could be made to the Scottish Legal Services Ombudsman (SLSO). However, the Ombudsman could only look at how complaints had been handled by those professional bodies.
The SLSO was abolished in 2007, and the SLCC was set up as the single 'gateway' for all legal complaints in Scotland. We are independent of the legal profession. Although we pass on conduct complaints to the professional bodies for them to deal with, we oversee how they deal with those complaints.
Information about the passage of the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Bill is on the website of the Scottish Parliament.
To read more on the Scottish Executive's consultation on the proposals for reforming the system of complaints handling, please see Reforming Complaints Handling, Building Consumer Confidence: Regulation of the Legal Profession in Scotland.
We are 15
The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission first opened its doors on 1 October 2008. We've made a series of videos and graphics to mark our first 15 years.