Complaints
If you are a client of the Firm and if you are dissatisfied with any aspect of the service provided, or our invoice and you would like to complain, this policy sets out how to do that.
We are in the business of building long term relationships and want our clients to be happy so please ensure that you contact us first and kindly follow this process.
We look at client complaints objectively and strive to take a constructive approach to reaching a satisfactory conclusion.
We recognise that complaints may provide us with an opportunity to check the quality of our service and to make improvements to it in a particular case or more generally.
You can make a complaint to the partner who is responsible for the matter concerned.
A complaint will be acknowledged within 10 working days. We will review your file carefully with the person handling the matter and make any wider enquiries within the Firm as may be necessary.
We will respond to your complaint as soon as practicable and within 21 days. Our response will usually be in writing, and we may suggest a meeting. We will inform you of our views about your complaint and how we propose to resolve it.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may refer your complaint to our Complaints Partner, who will look at the matter again and will carry out any further investigations as may be necessary. Usually within 28 days of the complaint being referred to him, he will inform you of his conclusions and any proposals to resolve the complaint.
If it remains unresolved, only if the complaint relates to an individual solicitor rather than the Firm, you may refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman. The Solicitors Regulation Authority can assist if you are concerned about their behaviour.
The Legal Ombudsman is an independent and impartial lay body for members of the public who wish to make a complaint about a solicitor who has acted for them. It operates within a regulatory and disciplinary framework set, monitored and enforced by the regulatory body for solicitors, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (“SRA”).
Before it will consider a complaint about an individual solicitor, the Legal Ombudsman generally requires that a Firm’s internal complaints procedure has been exhausted with the client. If the Legal Ombudsman is satisfied that the Firm’s proposals for resolving a complaint are reasonable, it may decline to investigate further.
The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date or 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.
The Legal Ombudsman may do a number of things:
(i) investigate the quality of the professional service supplied by a solicitor to a client;
(ii) express a view on whether the solicitor’s charges are found reasonable; or
(iii) refer allegations that the solicitor has breached rules of professional conduct to the SRA.
The Legal Ombudsman will not:
(i) determine complicated issues of fact or law which can only be decided by a Court; or
(ii) give legal advice or tell a solicitor how to handle a case; or
(iii) review the outcome of a court case.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
