Complaints Policy

Complaints Policy

As a firm we are committed to providing a quality legal service to all of our clients. Consequently, it is important that if something goes wrong or any client believes that they have reason to complain, that we have an effective procedure to assist in the early resolution of the issue. By doing this we hope to maintain the quality standards which we set ourselves.

Procedure

We ask you first to raise the matter with the solicitor who is dealing with your matter. It would be useful if your complaint could be put in writing at this stage, although not essential. The solicitor dealing will try and resolve the complaint for you. However, if this cannot be achieved then your complaint will be passed to either Graham Simm or Victoria Oerton who will act as the Client Care Officer.

What happens next

  • Your complaint will be acknowledged within 7 working days. In our acknowledgement letter we will set out our understanding of your complaint and seek any necessary clarification of the complaint from you.
  • The complaint will be registered in our central register and a separate complaint file will be opened.
  • We will investigate your complaint. This will involve a thorough review of the file, and we will speak with the solicitor handling your matter. We will then write to you with a detailed response to your complaint, and with any suggestions which we may have for resolving your complaint. We aim to do this within 20 working days of our writing to you acknowledging receipt of your complaint, or we will write and explain why we believe that we need more time to investigate the matter.
  • If you would like to have a meeting then this can be arranged. The outcome of any meeting will be followed up in writing.
  • If you remain dissatisfied with our response then we will write to you to confirm our final position.

You can refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman at PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH. Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within 6 months of the date of our letter confirming our final position. For further information you can contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or visit www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Please note that if it is unavoidably necessary to change any of the above time-scales we will confirm this to you in writing.