A complaint to a law firm about a closed file and a medical report fee
- Area:
- Consumer
- Decision body:
- Harcourt Stirling Solicitors Ltd, in its own final response
- Decided:
- March 2026
On this page
The issue
In February 2024 the client was a passenger in a car accident, and Harcourt Stirling Solicitors Ltd (Harcourt Stirling) took on his personal injury claim. By early 2026 the firm had closed his file and was asking him to pay for a medical report, and he believed it was holding on to the file. He complained to the firm.
How it unfolded
- February 2024. After the accident, Harcourt Stirling took on the claim. He understood that his motor insurer at the time had sent him there. The firm later said he had instructed it directly, under a signed engagement letter.
- August 2024. A second firm, to which his motor insurer had also referred him, was writing to him about the same claim. He had not realised that two firms were acting for him.
- October 2024. The firm told him, as it later put it, that the insurer on the other side had confirmed another firm of solicitors was acting for him on the same claim.
- August 2025. Harcourt Stirling closed his file. It asked him to pay £187.92 for a medical report it had paid for on the claim. The letter was addressed to him but sent to the email address of the car's driver, and he first saw it in early 2026.
- February 2026. He made a formal complaint: that the firm had refused to release his file, that it had closed the file without proper reason, that the medical report fee was not his to pay, and that his ability to pursue the claim had suffered. He asked for his file and made a data request.
- February 2026. The firm's complaints handler acknowledged the complaint and promised a full answer within six weeks, by a date in March.
- February 2026. Two days later the firm wrote: "For the avoidance of doubt, your file of papers has never been withheld." It said release had been authorised the day he first asked for the file, and resent it electronically that day, by a download link that expired after three days. He received the file, with his medical report, that month.
- March 2026. The date the firm had set for its answer passed. The answer came six days later.
What was provided
- A formal complaint to the firm, with a request for his file and a data request.
- A reply when he understood the file had not arrived.
- The argument: the file had been held back, it was closed without proper reason, and the medical report fee should not fall on him.
How would you have decided?
Vote to see how other readers answered and what the decision body said.
Lost
The outcome
In March 2026 Harcourt Stirling sent its final response: "We do not uphold your complaint."
- On the file, it said: "There was no refusal to release your file". The file went to him within a week of his first direct request, and the firm said it did "not seek to rely on any lien".
- On the closure, it said it closed the file in August 2025 because the insurer on the other side had confirmed another firm was acting for him on the same claim, and "A solicitor cannot act where another firm is instructed on the same matter".
- On the fee, it said the £187.92 "remains payable" under the engagement letter, because the firm's work ended before any settlement from which the cost could have been recovered.
- It added an apology "To the extent that there was any misunderstanding".
This was the firm's own decision. No independent body has ruled on it yet.
What it means if you are in the same position
- Ask for your file in so many words, in writing. The firm said his first direct request came with the complaint, and the file went out six days later.
- Download links expire. Save a file the day it arrives.
- Read the engagement letter on disbursements, such as a medical report. Here it said they stay payable if the claim does not finish with that firm.
- If two firms are involved in one claim, settle in writing which one acts. He had not realised two were acting, and the firm said it could not act once it was told another firm was instructed.
- Make sure a firm writes to you directly. This firm's closing letter, with its fee request, went to someone else's email, and he first saw it months later.
- A firm's final response must tell you about the Legal Ombudsman. You usually have six months from that response, and one year from the problem, to go there.
Where it went next
In July 2026 he took the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, which acknowledged it that month. It was still waiting to be assessed in October. The £187.92 is unpaid, and the firm has not chased it since its final response. His injury claim has not been taken up by another firm since, and nothing more about it is told here.
Updates
- October 2026. Checked against the papers and emails in the matter. The story now says that a second firm, to which his motor insurer had also referred him, was already acting for him on the same claim in the summer of 2024, which he had not realised; that the firm's closing letter and fee request went to the driver's email, so he first saw them in early 2026; that he received his medical report with the file; and that the fee is unpaid. Nothing in the earlier text was found wrong.
- October 2026. Reworded so that the matter is told by the person's role, with nothing to say whose it was. No fact changed.
Comments
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