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 maintain and improve our standards.
Complaints Procedure
If you have a complaint, please contact us with the details. If we have to change any of the timescales set out below we will let you know.
What happens next?
- Within three days we will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain the details. We may suggest a meeting to clarify any details.
- We will then record your complaint in our central register and open a file for your complaint and investigate your complaint. This may involve one or more of the following steps.
- We will consider you complaint, examine the file and send you our detailed reply or invite you to a meeting to discuss the matter.
- We may ask another independent local solicitor to investigate your complaint and report back to us.
- We will then write inviting you to meet us and discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint.
- At this stage we would welcome the opportunity to meet with you. We would aim to be in a position to be able to meet with you within 14 days of first receiving your complaint. If you would prefer not to meet, or if we cannot arrange this within an agreeable timescale, we will write fully to you setting out our views on the situation and any redress.
- Within three days of the meeting we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions we have agreed with you.
- At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, please contact us again. We will then arrange to review our decision within the next 10 days. This may happen in one of the following ways.
- We will review the decision ourselves.
- We will arrange for someone who is not connected with the complaint to review the decisions.
- We will ask another local firm of solicitors to review the complaint. This may take longer than 10 days in which case we will let you know how long this process will take.
- We will invite you to agree to an independent mediation. This again may take longer than 10 days and we will do our best to let you know how long this will take.
- We will let you know the results of the review within five days of the end of the review. At this time we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
- If you are still not satisfied, the next step is for you to contact the Legal Ombudsman by one of the following methods.
Telephone : 0300 555 0333
Overseas: +44 12 245 3050
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
In writing : PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ
www.legalombudsman.org.uk
The Ombudsman service is only available to members of the public, very small businesses, charities, clubs and trusts. If you are unclear about your position, then you should contact the Legal Ombudsman direct to clarify whether or not they can deal with your complaint. Alternatively, please refer to the Legal Ombudsman’s scheme rules which are available by clicking on the following link:
http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/downloads/documents/publications/Scheme-Rules.pdf
You have the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman at the conclusion of our complaints process providing you do so within 6 months of the date of our final written response.
Ordinarily you can also ask the Legal Ombudsman to investigate your complaint if you are referring your complaint within:
- either 6 years of the problem happening, or
- 3 years from when you found out about it.
Complaints About Fees
If you are dissatisfied with our bill, you have the right to apply to the High Court for an assessment of our charges by an Officer of the Court under ss.70, 71 and 72 of the Solicitors Act 1974. We hope that before making such an application you would first use our complaints procedure explained above.
Complaints About Misconduct
If you have any concerns about any misconduct or breach of the SRA Code of Conduct by our firm such as taking or losing your money, dishonesty or discrimination, you can also report the matter to our regulatory body, the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Their details are:
The Solicitors Regulation Authority The Cube
Wharfside Street
Birmingham
B1 1RN
0370 606 2555 http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page