Ten percent of the Europe law departments who responded to a survey in 2003 had such a procedure. [www.practicallaw.com/A28843, pg. 2]. Clients of those departments had a defined outlet for performance or personnel complaints.
Having never heard of a U.S. counterpart, I was interested that under these mechanisms clients can lodge a complaint in confidence; a senior, independent lawyer deals with the complaint; and the department publicizes the right so that clients know of its availability. In fact, 21 percent of the departments in companies with more than $8 billion in revenue offer their clients this recourse! One should expect client satisfaction scores to soar in those departments.