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. We deal with all complaints fairly, promptly and at no extra cost to you.
1) 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.
2) Making a complaint
In the first instance, please contact the person dealing with your matter to discuss your concerns. If you do not feel comfortable doing this and would like to make a formal complaint, you must write to the Client Care Director, Daniel Russell, with full details of your complaint so that we have a good understanding of the issues being highlighted. The Client Care Director will deal with some complaints with the assistance of Richard Higham, who is also a director of the practice. In some instances, the complaint will solely be dealt with by Richard Higham.
3) Investigating the complaint
a) We will acknowledge the complaint within seven days which allows for any postal delays and notify you who will be handling your complaint.
b) We will record your complaint in our central register and open a file for your complaint. We will conduct a full investigation and an independent review of the matter.
c) We aim to respond in full within 28 days of receiving the complaint. 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 Client Care Director to gather more information and resolve the matter.
d) We will reply to you, usually in writing following the outcome of the review of the complaint investigated.
If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome or the way the complaint has been handled, you may write to the Client Care Director, who will arrange for another director, who was not involved with the investigation of the complaint to review the decision. The reviewing director will inform you of the conclusions and any alternative resolution proposals within 14 days of the Client Care Director having received notification of your dissatisfaction with the outcome or the way the complaint has been handled.
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.
4) 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 practice’s internal Complaints Procedure (outlined above) has been exhausted. If the Legal Ombudsman is satisfied that the practice’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:
Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH.
telephone: 0300 555 0333.
website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk; or email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk.
5) Alternative Dispute Resolution schemes
Alternative complaints bodies, such as ProMediate exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and we wish to use such a scheme.
However, we do not 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.
6) Contracts entered into online
If we are unable to resolve your complaint which relates to a contract entered online, you may contact the Online Dispute Resolution providers by accessing the following link: https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr.