We hope that you will never have reason to complain about our service to you or an invoice
that we send to you. However, if something does go wrong or the invoice appears to be
incorrect, please bring it to our attention as soon as you can. We will try to resolve the matter
fairly and quickly. We will apologise if need be and do our best to offer a practical solution.
Complaints should be made to the Principal .
There is a body called the Legal Ombudsman, an independent body that handles complaints
about legal services. Its details are The Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 15870, Birmingham, B30
9EB, telephone 0300 555 0333. Legal Ombudsman email and Legal Ombudsman website.
The Legal Ombudsman has produced three helpful booklets to guide you if you have a
complaint. We can let you have copies on request or you can find them on the Legal
Ombudsman’s website. They are called Here to Help, Making a complaint and Guide to Good
Complaints handling.
You can ask the Legal Ombudsman to become involved at the end our internal complaints
procedure, if you are unhappy with the outcome. The Legal Ombudsman has a helpline if you
need to speak to them about how to make a complaint. Calls are charged at a local rate and
will be recorded. There is no charge for the Ombudsman’s services.
A preliminary point
The relationship with your lawyer is built on trust and openness. You should be able to talk to
your lawyer frankly about all sorts of things so that some complaints (and these are likely to
be minor issues) might lend themselves to be resolved between by a simple phone call with
your lawyer. However, if you are not comfortable speaking to your lawyer about the problem
then speak to the Principal .
How do I complain?
We much prefer that substantial or complicated complaints are dealt with in writing – we do
not have any set forms that we use for this purpose. However, we realise that not all clients
may be able to formulate a detailed letter. In such cases, a telephone call will do, during
which we will make a note of the issues and then send that to you for comment. This
document will then form the basis of the complaint.
Who do I complain to?
Our system is that, wherever possible, complaints are resolved within the person
handling your case. You should look at the “Client Care” letter that you were sent at the
start of your case. It will name the person in the firm to whom you should address your
complaint.
Although you should know the name of the person dealing with your case, the reference
in the top left hand corner of our letters will tell you the name of the fee-earner who left
deals with your case (the first initials).
You will be informed in writing by the lawyer having conduct of your matter if there is a
change of person to whom any problem with service should be addressed.
The person dealing with your complaint will inform the Principal that a complaint has
been made for our complaints file and so that we can monitor progress of the complaint.
We hope that this simple procedure will deal with your concerns, however, if it does not
you should write to the Principal who is Martin Stewart
What will happen next?
1. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within three days
of receiving it, enclosing a copy of this procedure.
2. We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing your
complaint to the Principal who will review your matter file and speak to the member of
staff who acted for you.
3. The Principal will then write to you with his findings within 21 days of sending you
the acknowledgement letter. However, if the complaint is complicated further time may
be needed. If so, the Principal will write and tell you and set another time limit.
4. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, the Principal will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including his suggestions for resolving the matter.
5. Within three days of any meeting, the Principal will write to you to confirm what took
place and any solutions she has agreed with you.
6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will
arrange for another unconnected with the matter at the firm to review her decision. In
some cases, an appropriate alternative at this stage might be mediation to review the
decision.
7. We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming
our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
8. If you are still not satisfied, you can contact:
Legal Ombudsman,
PO Box 6806
Wolverhampton
WV19WJ
about your complaint. Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made
within six months of the date of our final written response on your complaint but for
further information, you should email the Legal Ombudsman or call 0300 555 0333.
If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.
Legal Ombudsman’s time limits
Please see the Ombudsman’s website.
The Ombudsman will allow us a period of 8 weeks to resolve your complaint. The
Ombudsman asks that you come to it as soon as you can and within 6 months of your
last contact with us.
Ordinarily, you must make a compliant to the Legal Ombudsman within a year of the
matter giving rise to the complaint or a year from when you should reasonably have
known there was cause for complaint without taking advice from a third party, whichever
is later. The Legal Ombudsman can increase any time limit in exceptional circumstances
eg if there is serious illness.
There are special rules about your right to apply for a remuneration certificate. You have
either one month from the date of the bill to apply in writing where the information
appears on the back of our bill, or where you have not been told of your right to apply for
a certificate, 3 months from the date of the bill.
If you have a complaint about any of the people that we employ who are not solicitors
then you should write to the Principal .
Complaints regarding a data subject request under the Data Protection Act 1998and EU
General Data Protection Regulation are dealt with in accordance with this policy.
The Online Dispute Resolution website is an official website managed by the European
Commission dedicated to helping consumers and on-traders resolve their disputes out-
of-court. We currently do not use any ADR providers to resolve complaints, including
those which the ODR Platform transmits complaints to, but unresolved complaints about
our services will be dealt with by the Legal Ombudsman under the statutory complaints
scheme.
