Complaints Procedure

Our Complaints Procedure

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.

If you have a complaint, please contact the partner with overall responsibility for the work, who is named in our client care letter. If this does not resolve your complaint to your satisfaction or you do not wish to speak to him or her, please contact the firm’s Client Care Officer, David Wise.

We have eight weeks to consider your written complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time you may complain to the Legal Ombudsman.

What will happen next?

• We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within three days of receiving it, enclosing a copy of this procedure. We will also record your complaint in our central register.
• We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the following: i) A review of your file by our Client Care Officer. ii) Speaking to the member of staff who acted for you.
• The Client Care Officer will then invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. They will do this within 21 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
• Within three days of the meeting, the Client Care Officer will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions agreed with you.
• If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, the Client Care Officer will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including suggestions for resolving the matter, within 21 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
• At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will then arrange for someone unconnected with the matter, or the Managing Partner, to review your complaint. We will let you know how long this process will take.
• We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a further review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
• If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.
• If you are still not satisfied, you can then contact the Legal Ombudsman (PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ, 0300 555 0333, [email protected]) about your complaint. Normally, you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint, or within six years of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring (or if outside of this period, within three years of when you should reasonably have been aware of it).
• The Solicitors Regulation Authority (The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN, 0370 606 2555, [email protected]) deals with cases where firms or solicitors have breached SRA Principles – it does not have the power to award compensation for poor service, or to reduce or refund your legal fees. You can also report a firm or someone regulated by the SRA for non-payment of professional fees (such as agent or expert fees) if you have a County Court judgment in respect of the fee and the judgment relates to the practice in connection with providing a legal service. The SRA will also consider allegations of dishonesty or discrimination.