Our Complaints Policy

We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients.  When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it.  This will help us to improve our standards.  We take complaints very seriously and will aim to deal with these as soon as possible.

 

Raising your Complaint

1. If you have a complaint, please initially speak to the fee earner who has conduct of your file.  The fee earner will acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days of receipt and will enclose a copy of this procedure.
2. The fee earner will then review your complaint. The fee earner may ask to speak to you over the telephone or invite you in for a meeting to discuss your complaint further if they feel this would be helpful.
3. A full response to your complaint will be provided within 14 days of the date the complaint is acknowledged.
4. However, if this does not satisfy your complaint then please ask for your complaint to be forwarded on to the client care partner.

 

What will happen next?

1. The client care partner will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within three working days of receiving it and referring again to this procedure.
2. The client care partner will then investigate your complaint by reviewing the same, along with your file and thereafter will speak to the member of staff who acted for you.
3. The client care partner will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including his/her suggestions for resolving the matter, within 4 weeks of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
4. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you are able raise questions to the client care partner asking for a further review / further explanation.
5. We will then write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

 

What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint

If we are unable to resolve your complaint then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about service issues with lawyers.

The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within six years of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within three years of you realising there was a concern. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you.

However, please note that from 1 April 2023 these time limits are changing. From the 1 April the Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within a year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within a year of you realising there was a concern. The requirement to refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you remains the same.

If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them.

Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9.00 to 17.00.

Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Address: Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ

 

What to do if you are unhappy with our behaviour

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.

If you would like more information about how you can raise your concerns with the SRA, please contact them.

Visit: www.sra.org.uk