Complaints Procedure

1. Our Policy
We are committed to providing a high quality legal service to all our clients in all the areas of law in which we practice. When something goes wrong we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards.

2. Our Procedure
If you have a complaint, please write, email or telephone us with the details of the complaint.

3. What will happen next?
(a) We shall send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and we shall ask you to confirm or to explain the details set out. We shall also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint. You can expect to receive a letter within 3 working days of our receiving your complaint.

(b) We shall record your complaint in our central register and open a separate file for your complaint. We shall do this within a day of receiving your complaint.

(c) We shall acknowledge your reply to our acknowledgement letter and we shall confirm what will happen next. You can expect to hear from us within 2 working days of your reply.

(d) We shall then start to investigate your complaint which will normally involve the following steps:

• We shall pass your complaint to our Mrs Susan Howell, our Client Care Partner within 3 working days.

• Mrs Howell will ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint within 5 working days.

• Mrs Howell will then examine their reply and the information in your complaint file. If necessary Mrs Howell will also speak to the fee earner who handled your case. This will take up to 3 working days from receiving their reply and the file.

  1. Mrs Howell will then invite you to meet with her to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. Mrs Howell will do this within 3 working days.
  2. Within 3 working days of the meeting, Mrs Howell 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 if it is not possible to have a meeting, Mrs Howell will send you a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include her suggestions for resolving the matter. She will do this within 5 days of completing her investigation.
  3. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you can write to us again. We shall arrange to review our decision. This will happen in one of the following ways:

• Another partner of the firm will review Mrs Howell’s decision within 10 working days.

• We shall invite you to agree to independent mediation within 4 working days. We shall let you know how long this process will take.

  1. We shall let you know the result of the review within 5 working days of the end of the review. At this time we shall write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons. If you are not satisfied with our handing of your complaint you can ask the Legal Ombudsman’s Office at PO BOX 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ to consider your complaint. They can be contacted by telephone on 0300 555 0333 and emailed on enquiries@legalombudsman@org.uk. A complaint must be referred to the Ombudsman within 6 months of the date of our final response.
  2. If we have to change any of the time scales above, we shall let you know immediately and explain why.