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 immediately, so that we can do our best to resolve the problem. This will help us to maintain our standards.

Making a complaint will not affect how we handle your instructions.

In the first instance it may be helpful to contact the person dealing with your instructions to discuss your concerns and we will do our very best to resolve any issue that you raise.

If you would like to make a formal complaint, please contact us with the details. We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time you may complain to the Legal Ombudsman.

What will happen if you make a complaint to us?

1. The Partner in charge of the Department against whom the complaint is made will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within three days of receiving it, enclosing a copy of this procedure.
2. That person will identify themselves to you and will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve reviewing your matter file and speaking to the member of staff who acted for you.
3. The person investigating the complaint will then invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. They will do this within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
4. Within three days of the meeting, that person will write to you to confirm what took place and will set out any solutions that it may have been possible to agree with you.
5. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, the person investigating the complaint will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including any suggestions for resolving the matter, within 21 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for the Senior Partner to review the complaint and the complaint process carried out. If the complaint is about the Senior Partner, then the review of the complaint will be carried out one of the other Partners.
7. We will 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 expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the alleged 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.

You may contact the Legal Ombudsman using any of the following contact details:

Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH

www.legalombudsman.org.uk

0300 555 0333

enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

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 money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.

Visit their website to see how you can raise your concern

www.sra.org.uk