Complaints Procedure
- 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 person dealing with your matter or their Supervisor, details of which are given in your initial Client Care Letter. They will try and resolve matters with you at first instance.
If we are unable to resolve your complaint at this point, please write to us with full details of your complaint so that we have a good understanding of the issues being highlighted.
In all likelihood your complaint will be investigated by our Complaints Handling Partner, and CEO, Mark Edmondson.
- Investigating the complaint
- We will acknowledge the complaint within seven days which allows for any postal delays and notify you who will be handling your complaint.
- We will record your complaint in our central register. We will conduct a full investigation and an independent review of the matter.
- We aim to respond in full within 28 days. However, if the complaint is of a more complex nature, we will require more time, but we will let you know when you will receive a full response. We may also invite you to meet with the Supervisor to gather more information and resolve the matter.
- We will reply to you, usually in writing following the outcome of the review of the complaints investigated.
- If we have not received an acknowledgement from you within 4 weeks of the date of our full and final response, we shall assume you are satisfied with our response and that the complaint has been settled.
If still unresolved at this stage, you may take the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman or, in accordance with the Alternative Dispute Resolution Regulations to an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Scheme Provider. We will issue a final letter advising you of this.
- 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:
- Investigate the quality of professional service supplied by a solicitor to a client.
- Investigate allegations that a solicitor has breached rules of professional conduct.
- Investigate allegations that a solicitor has unreasonably refused to supply a professional service to a prospective client
- Investigate allegations that a solicitor has persistently or unreasonably offered a professional service that the client does not want
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. The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within a year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within a year of you realising there was a concern.
The Legal Ombudsman’s address and contact details are:
PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH; 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.
The SRA does not have the power to award compensation for poor service, or to reduce or refund your legal fees. If your report relates to these issues you will be signposted back to the Legal Ombudsman.
- ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION SCHEMES
Alternative complaints bodies Ombudsman Services, ProMediate and Small Claims Mediation and the website 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.