
Complaints Procedure
Making Complaints and Raising Concerns – Procedure
Our Complaints Policy
We are committed to providing a high quality legal service to all of our clients. However if at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service we have provided to you, we need you to let us know as soon as possible. We will do our best to resolve the problem for you. We will investigate your concerns objectively and address the issues that you have raised and try and satisfy your concerns. Raising your complaint or concern will help us improve our standards.
Making a Complaint
In the first instance please contact the lawyer who is working for you on your case to discuss any concerns and they will do their best to try to resolve any issues at that stage.
If we are unable to resolve your concern please make a complaint to Mark Edmondson or Deborah Hargreaves either orally or in writing by setting out the details of your complaint. We will then follow the following timetable:
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- We will acknowledge your complaint within two working days;
- We will ask you for further clarification of your complaint, if necessary, as soon as reasonably practicable;
- We will investigate your complaint as soon as reasonably practicable;
- We will endeavour to write to you to confirm Edmondson Hall’s full and final position on your complaint, setting out our reasons within 28 days of acknowledging receipt of your complaint. If appropriate we may also invite you to attend a meeting to discuss your complaint and any suggested solution;
- If we have not received an acknowledgement from you within four 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.
Complaints about Bills
Please use this procedure if you have a concern or complaint about a bill. In addition, you have the right to object to a bill by applying to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. If you apply to the court, the Legal Ombudsman (see below) may decide not to deal with the complaint about the bill.
Making a Complaint to the Legal Ombudsman
If we are unable to resolve the complaint with you then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates problems about poor service from lawyers.
Before accepting a complaint for investigate the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman.
- Within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint;
- And
- Twelve months from the date of act/omission; or
- Twelve months from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint (only if the act took place more than twelve months ago). If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman please contact them.
Contact details:
Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Call: 0300 555 0333 between 8:30am to 5:30pm. For minicom call 0300 555 1777.
Calls to 03 numbers will cost no more than calls to national geographic numbers (starting 01 or 02) from both mobiles and landlines. Calls are recorded and may be used for training and monitoring purposes.
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Postal: Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6806
Wolverhampton
WV1 9WJ
- Here is a link to the ODR. Platform: (http://ec.europa.eu/odr); and
- The email address of the online trader: solicitors@edmondsonhall.com
Do not send original documents to the Legal Ombudsman. They will scan any documents you send to make computer copies and then destroy the originals.
NB Ours is different from what is suggested by the Legal Ombudsman – the Legal Ombudsman says “the Legal Ombudsman expect complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the actual 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 6 months of our final response to you”.