Complaint against a lawyer

All lawyers must comply with the Norwegian Code of Conduct for Lawyers. If you believe a lawyer has breached the ethics rules, you can make a complaint to the disciplinary authorities. You can also make a complaint if you believe a lawyer has charged an excessive fee. The complaint scheme is free and available electronically via Advokatklageordningen.no.

What can I complain about?

You can make a complaint about your lawyer’s conduct (professional conduct for lawyers), fees or both.

What can I not complain about?

The disciplinary authorities cannot deal with issues that have been brought before the courts. This means that a complaint may be discontinued at some point in the process.

The Norwegian Bar Association’s Disciplinary Committee (Advokatforeningens disiplinærutvalg) also does not deal with complaints related to real estate services where the lawyer is a member of the complaint body for real estate services (Reklamasjonsnemda for eiendomsmeglingssaker). This type of complaint must be sent to the Reklamasjonsnemnda.

Who can complain?

The complainant must have a genuine interest in the complaint. Whether someone is considered to have a genuine interest in the complaint is based on a fact-specific assessment. A formal client relationship is not required. Normally, the parties to a case are considered to have a genuine interest in the complaint. However, there may be special reasons to allow others to be covered as well. If the complainant is not considered to have a genuine interest in the complaint, the complaint will be rejected.

What can I accomplish by making a complaint?

Discipline

If the complaint is successful, the lawyer may be subject to criticism, a reprimand or a warning. A warning is the most severe of these forms of discipline. In particularly serious complaints, the lawyer may also be reported to the public regulatory bodies: the Supervisory Council for Legal Practice (Tilsynsrådet for advokatvirksomhet) or the Regulatory Authority for Lawyers (Advokatbevillingsnemnden).

Fee repayment

In complaints related to the size of the fee, the disciplinary authorities may decide that the fee shall be reduced or cancelled. The lawyer may then be ordered to repay the fee to the complainant in part or in full.

The Disciplinary Board’s (Disiplinærnemnden for advokater) decision about fee repayment is enforceable. If the lawyer does not repay the fee in compliance with the Board’s decision, the complainant can turn to the execution and enforcement authority for assistance in collecting the money.

Legal costs

The complaint scheme is free and costs can generally only be awarded to the complainant. Legal costs must be set at a reasonable amount. Claims for costs must be made in the complaint.

Damages

You will not be awarded damages even if your complaint succeeds. If you want damages on the basis of errors you believe the lawyer has made, the claim must be made to the lawyer’s insurer. For information about where the lawyer is insured, you can contact the Supervisory Council for Legal Practice (Tilsynsrådet for advokatvirksomhet).

What deadlines apply?

The complaint must be submitted within six months of the date you knew or ought to have known about the issues the complaint relates to. If there are special reasons that meant you were unable to complain within the deadline, you may nevertheless submit a complaint after the expiry of the deadline. The disciplinary authority will then assess whether to consider the complaint.

If the situation you are complaining about took place more than three years ago, your complaint will be rejected regardless of your reasons for submitting your complaint late.

How do I complain?

Electronic complaint

Complaints about lawyers must be submitted electronically via Advokatklageordningen.no.

Advokatklageordningen.no is a completely electronic complaint system that contributes to a good, secure and efficient disciplinary scheme.

You must have an electronic ID to log into the portal. You can choose from five electronic ID options: MinID, BankID, BankID on mobile, Buypass ID on smart card, Buypass ID in mobile and Commfides. You can find information about how to get an electronic ID at http://www.difi.no/elektronisk-id/slik-skaffer-du-deg-elektronisk-id.

Log onto the portal via a computer – do not use a mobile phone or tablet. We recommend that you use Google Chrome as your web browser, or alternatively Firefox or Microsoft Edge. When logging in for the first time, and every six months thereafter, you will be asked to verify your mobile number.

If you are unable to submit the complaint yourself, you can authorise someone else to represent you in the complaint: see the section on “Use a representative”.

Complain about multiple lawyers

If you want to complain about multiple lawyers, you must register one complaint for each lawyer. If the complaint is about a trainee lawyer (advokatfullmektig), the complaint must also be submitted about the responsible lawyer (saksansvarlig advokat).

Multiple complainants

You can register multiple complainants in a complaint. If you are acting on behalf of one or more complainants, you must have an authorisation from each of the other complainants. The authorisation must include your full name, the full names of the other complainants you are acting on behalf of, a description of the case, and a signature. Read more about the authorisation in the “Use a representative” section.

Use a representative

You can be represented by someone else in the complaint, and you can also act on behalf of multiple complainants in a complaint. The representative will be the only one receiving notices about the complaint and will be the only one able to read and submit messages and submissions in the portal.

The representative must have an authorisation from all of the complainants. This applies even if the representative is also a complainant. The authorisation must be uploaded under “Documentation” when registering the complaint. The confirmation must contain your and your representative’s full names, a description of the case, and signatures. A lawyer who represents their client in a complaint does not need this authorisation.

The complaint

The complaint must contain a short description of what it is about and the date when you became aware of the issue you are complaining about. You must also indicate whether you are complaining about “professional conduct for lawyers” and/or fees.

Documentation

You must upload any relevant documentation as attachments to the complaint. These must be documents that provide information about the case, such as a confirmation of the client relationship, correspondence and time sheets. We recommend using the PDF and JPEG formats, but you can also use Word, Excel and PNG.

You can upload up to 9 attachments, at a maximum of 5 MB per attachment. You must therefore be careful in selecting your documents. The attachments must be named V1, V2, V3, etc. The number and size of the files being uploaded will affect how fast the electronic submission is.

Remember to include all relevant documentation before signing and submitting the complaint. Documentation that is uploaded in an orderly manner will help ensure a more efficient processing of the complaint. We recommend that the complaint be saved and reviewed before submission.

The parties decide what information and documentation will be used to make a decision in the complaint. We recommend that you limit the inclusion of personal data, and only provide the information necessary to the complaint. For more information about this topic, see the “Processing personal data” section.

Consent

In order for your complaint to be processed you must agree that the Disciplinary Committee may process personal data about you under Article 6(1)(a) and Article 9(2)(a) of the GDPR. The purpose of the processing is to manage the complaints in the Disciplinary Committee.

Note that when you complain about your own lawyer, the disciplinary authorities assume that you have released your lawyer from their duty of confidentiality to the extent necessary to provide information relevant to the complaint.

Who processes the complaint?

The Bar Association’s Disciplinary Committee is the obligatory first-level decision-maker for complaints about lawyers who are members of the Bar Association. If the lawyer is not a member of the Bar Association, the complaint will be processed by the Disciplinary Board, which is a public body. Lawyers who are not members of the Bar Association may nevertheless pay a fee and request that the case be heard by the Disciplinary Committee as the first-level decision-maker.

The Bar Association is the secretariat for the Disciplinary Board.

How is the complaint processed?

The complaint processing is electronic, and all communication related to the complaint takes place in the portal.

You will receive an email notification every time there is a message for you in the portal. It is important that you pay attention to the email notifications and log into the portal to read the message, as there may be deadlines you have to relate to. In the event that you change your email address, you must make sure to update your profile in the portal.

Once we have registered your complaint, it will be made available to the lawyer, who will be given a deadline for their response.

In an ordinary complaint, each party may make two written submissions each. For the complainant, this is the complaint itself and a final submission. You will receive a message in the portal when it is your turn to make a submission, and you will be told what the deadline is for your submission. If you do not make your submission by this deadline, the complaint will move forward without your submission. The standard deadline for submissions by the parties is two weeks.

Once the case preparation is complete, the complaint will be sent to the disciplinary authority for a hearing.

The “Advokatklageordningen” lawyer complaint scheme is based on the principles of disclosure and adversarial proceedings. A submission by one party will be available to the other party and to anyone else participating in the processing of the complaint in the portal.

You can check the status of the complaint at any time by logging into the portal and selecting the appropriate complaint under “My cases”.

What is the complaint processing time?

It is assumed that the Disciplinary Committee will complete the processing of the complaint within six months of it being submitted. If the complaint has not been processed or rejected by the deadline, the parties may request that the case be transferred to the Disciplinary Board. This does not apply if delays are caused by the complainant, or if the nature of the complaint means that it requires an especially long processing time.

The Disciplinary Board has no equivalent hearing deadline but strives to maintain a similar timeline.

What can I do if I disagree with the decision?

Both the lawyer the complaint is about, and the complainant can appeal a decision by the Disciplinary Committee to the Disciplinary Board. The deadline for appeal is three weeks from the date of the decision.

A decision by the Disciplinary Board is final and cannot be appealed, but judicial review proceedings may be brought before the court.

Publication

All disciplinary decisions made in the past five years are publicly available. A decision that includes the name of the lawyer will be made available to the public on request. No reasons need to be given for such a request.

When access is given to a disciplinary decision, the lawyer it concerns will be informed that the decision has been provided and who it has been provided to.

Information that may identify clients or are otherwise subject to a duty of confidentiality will be anonymized before the decision is made publicly available.

The details about how decisions are made public are described in the “Guidelines for public access to disciplinary decisions in the Disciplinary Committee and the Disciplinary Board” (“Retningslinjer for offentlighet for disiplinærbeslutninger” (Norwegian only)).

Processing of personal data

The Disciplinary Committee and the Disciplinary Board are subject to the Personal Data Act’s provisions on the processing of personal data in the processing of a complaint. In order for the Bar Association to process personal data in a complaint, it needs a basis for doing so.

The basis for the Disciplinary Committee and the Disciplinary Board’s processing of personal data about the complainant is consent, cf. Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR and Article 9(2)(a) of the GDPR. Such consent is provided at the time the complaint is submitted.

The basis for the Disciplinary Committee’s processing of personal data about the lawyer the complaint is about, is Article 6(1)(b) and Article 9(2)(d) of the GDPR. The basis for the Disciplinary Board’s processing of personal data about the lawyer the complaint is about is Article 6(1)(c) and (e) and Article 9(2)(g) of the GDPR, cf. section 5-1(4) of the Regulations for advocates. When the lawyer is not a member of the Association but wants the Disciplinary Council to process the complaint, the basis for the personal data processing is consent, cf. Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR.

Article 4(1) of the GDPR defines personal data as “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person”. Some personal data will be so-called special categories of personal data, and Article 9 of the GDPR defines these as information on “racial or ethnic origin”, “political opinion”, “religion”, “philosophical belief”, “Union membership”, “processing of genetic data”, “biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person”, “data concerning health”, or “data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation”.

The complaint scheme is voluntary and the parties determine what information and documentation will form the basis for the processing of the complaint. We recommend that you limit the inclusion of personal data, and only include the information that is necessary. The information and documentation submitted by the parties are only used to process the complaint and are only available to specific case officers in the Bar Association and to the members of the Discipline Committee or the Disciplinary Board who are processing the complaint. All of these individuals are subject to a duty of confidentiality. The Bar Association does not seek out information in relation to the complaint.

Complaints that are processed by the Disciplinary Committee are deleted five years after the date of the decision. Complaints that are processed by the Disciplinary Board are regulated by the Archive Act.

For more information about the Bar Association’s processing of personal data, see our privacy policy.

Login errors in the portal

If you have trouble logging into the portal, we recommend that you:

1) Check that you have written the password correctly

2) Check whether you can log in by using a different browser (we recommend Google Chrome)

3) Check that your electronic ID works when you log into your bank or another public portal

Questions about errors caused by the ID-porten must be directed to DIFI’s user support for ID-porten.

For other errors, contact the “Advokatklageordningen” using “Contact user support” on the portal login page.

Links:

Advokatklageordningen.no

Code of Conduct for Lawyers, with comments (in Norwegian)

Regulations for lawyers (Advokatforskriften) (in Norwegian)

Processing rules for the Bar Association’s Disciplinary Committee (in Norwegian)

The Norwegian Bar Association’s Privacy Policy (in Norwegian)

DIFI user support for ID-porten

Reklamasjonsnemnda for eiendomsmeglingssaker