OUR COMPLAINTS POLICY & 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.
WHAT IS A COMPLAINT?
A report by a client that their expectations of what they consider to be a good service have not been met.
MAKING A COMPLAINT
You can register a complaint with the allocated person dealing with your matter or their Supervisor, details of which are given in your initial Client Care Letter.
In the first instance, we’d prefer if you write to us with full details of your complaint so that we have a good understanding of the issues being highlighted.
INVESTIGATING THE COMPLAINT
In doing so, we will also be complying with general obligations contained with the SRA Code of Conduct, which ensure:
LEGAL OMBUDSMAN
The Legal Ombudsman is the independent body established by the Office for Legal Complaints under the Legal Services Act 2007 to deal with complaints against Solicitors.
The Legal Ombudsman may:
Before it will consider a complaint the Legal Ombudsman generally requires that the firm’s internal Complaints Procedure (outlined above) has been exhausted. If the Legal Ombudsman is satisfied that the firm’s proposals for resolving a complaint are reasonable, it may decline to investigate further. You will have to bring your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within 6 months of receiving a final response from us about your complaint and 6 years from the date of the act or omission, giving rise to the complaint. Alternatively, 3 years from the date you should reasonably have known there are grounds for complaint.
The Legal Ombudsman’s address and contact details are:
PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ; telephone, 0300 555 0333; website, www.legalombudsman.org.uk; or email enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
THE SOLICITORS REGULATION AUTHORITY
The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you 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.
You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION SCHEMES
Alternative complaints bodies (such as Ombudsman Services www.ombudsman-services.org/ ) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme.
However, we don’t currently agree to use this Alternative Dispute Resolution service in view of the availability of the independent Legal Ombudsman Service established under the Legal Services Act 2007. We are bound by our Regulatory Code to comply with the Legal Ombudsman.
CONTRACTS ENTERED INTO ONLINE
If we are unable to resolve your complaint which relates to a contract entered into online, you may contact the Online Dispute Resolution providers by accessing the following link http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr