Our Complaints Policy

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.
If you have a complaint, please contact us with the details. We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time you may complain to the Legal Ombudsman.

Please be assured that

  • you will not be charged for the work that we do investigating and dealing with your complaint.
  • making a complaint will not prejudice or disrupt your case

Our complaints procedure

If you have a complaint, contact us with the details.

What will happen next?

1 We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and if necessary asking you to confirm or explain the details set out. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint. You can expect to receive our letter within 2 days of us receiving your complaint.

2 We will record your complaint in our central register and open a separate file for your complaint. We will do this within a day of receiving your complaint.

3 We will then start to investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the following steps.

  • We will pass your complaint to Mrs. Lawlor, our Client Care Partner,.
  • She will ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint.
  • She will then examine their reply and the information in your complaint file and, if necessary, she may also speak to them.

4 Mrs. Lawlor will then invite you to meet her and discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. She will do this within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.

5 Within 3 days of the meeting Mrs. Lawlor will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions she has agreed with you.
If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, Mrs. Lawlor will send you a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include her suggestions for resolving the matter. She will do this within 21 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.

6 At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you can write to us again. We will then arrange to review our decision. This will happen in one of the following ways.

  • Another partner of the firm will review Mrs. Lawlor’s decision within 10 days.
  • We will ask our local Law Society or another local firm of solicitors to review your complaint within 5 days. We will let you know how long this process will take.
  • We will invite you to agree to independent mediation within 5 days. We will let you know how long this process will take.

7 We will let you know the result of the review within 14 days of receiving your request for a review. At this time we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

If you are still not satisfied you can then contact the

Legal Ombudsman,
PO Box 6806,
Wolverhampton
WV1 9WJ

about your complaint. Normally, you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint or within six years of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring (or if outside of this period, within three years of when you should reasonably have been aware of it). For further information, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk.

Alternative complaints bodies (such as ProMediate http://www.netneutrals.uk/) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme. We do not agree to use ProMediate.

If you consider that we have breached any of the Principles of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) you can report us to the SRA. The following is a link to a guide and the relevant report form:

https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor

Alternatively, you can post the form to:

Solicitors Regulation Authority

The Cube

199 Wharfside Street

Birmingham

B1 1RN

Or call Tel: 0370 606 2555