Complaints Policy & Procedure

Our Complaints Policy
As a Firm we pride ourselves on the standard of service and legal advice that we give to all our clients. When clients have concerns about our service we try to resolve those concerns promptly and to their satisfaction. Where appropriate we then review our procedures and try and improve our standards for the future.

Whatever your concern – promptness of response; quality of advice; disagreeing with or wanting more information about a bill – please raise the matter with us.

Our Complaints Procedure
Usually we would ask clients to first raise matters with their legal adviser directly or with the director supervising their work. Our experience is that most issues can be resolved informally at this level of our procedure. If the problem continues then the matter should be raised with our Client Care Director, Judy Dyke.

If the matter is urgent, a telephone complaint can be made. More helpfully a letter should be sent to her outlining the nature of your complaint and the result you are seeking to achieve. This enables her to (i) familiarise herself with your file, (ii) raise issues for clarification with you and with those conducting your file.

What will happen next?

1. We will acknowledge your complaint promptly and in writing within 7 days. Your complaint will be investigated. Mrs Dyke may wish to discuss matters with you on the phone or in person but will certainly be writing to you to keep you informed and to seek further details if required. She will seek to finally resolve the complaint within a month.
2. We will record your complaint in our central register and open a file specifically to deal with it.
3. We will write to you to keep you informed of the progress of our investigation and confirm the outcomes of significant telephone discussions or meetings.
4. Mrs Dyke will communicate her proposed resolution of the complaint to you. If that communication is by telephone or personal meetings then in any event it will result in a letter to you.
5. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, please let us know. We will then arrange to review our decision. We would generally aim to do this within 10 days. This will happen in one of the following ways;
   • The Client Care Director will review her own decision.
   • We will arrange for someone in the Firm who has not been involved in your complaint to review it.
   • The Managing Director will review your complaint within 10 days.
   • We will ask our local Law Society or another firm of solicitors to review your complaint. We will let you know how long this process will take.
   • We will invite you to agree independent mediation. We will let you know how long this process will take.
6. 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 one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within one year 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. The Legal Ombudsman can be contacted at PO Box 15870, Birmingham B30 9EB, email:enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk, tel: 0300 555 0333. You should normally contact the Legal Ombudsman about your complaint within six months of receiving our final written response. We very much hope that this will not be necessary. The SRA can be contacted here tel: 0370 606 2555.