Our Complaints Policy

Our Complaints Procedure

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

What will happen next?

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within five working 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 our Complaints Officer, Victoria Willetts, who will review your matter and speak to the member of staff/ fee earner who acted for you.
3. Depending on the nature of the complaint Victoria Willetts may seek further information from you, invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint, if it is considered that such a meeting is in the best interests of both parties, and will facilitate a resolution.
4. Should a meeting take place then within five working days of the meeting, Victoria Willetts will write to you to confirm what took place and any outcomes she has agreed with you.
5. If a meeting is not considered appropriate then we will explain why we do not believe a meeting is necessary. In these circumstances we will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including suggestions for resolving the matter, within eight weeks of our receipt of your complaint. This will be our “Final Response”.
6. If you remain dissatisfied after receiving our Final Response, or in the unlikely event that you have not received a Final Response within eight weeks of receiving your complaint, you may be entitled to complain to the Legal Ombudsman about our service. The Legal Ombudsman will normally expect you to have exhausted this complaints procedure before referring to them.
7. Most private individuals and smaller organisational or business clients will be able to make use of the Legal Ombudsman scheme. However, there are restrictions for larger organisational and business clients. These are set out in the Scheme Rules, which can be accessed on the Legal Ombudsman website, details of which are given below.
8. Time limits apply to the service, so if you do wish to refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman you should not delay once our own complaints process has concluded. In certain circumstances the Legal Ombudsman may exercise discretion to consider a complaint out of time.
9. If you are still not satisfied, you can then contact the Legal Ombudsman at: www.legalombudsman.org.uk; T: 0300 555 0333 between 9.00am to 5.00pm; E: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk; Post: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH.
10. The Legal Ombudsman service considers complaints about the quality of legal services that clients receive. In the unlikely event that you have more serious concerns that a lawyer of the firm have been involved in professional misconduct then it may be appropriate for you to refer this to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
11. We do not anticipate any such problems arising and would ask that you notify the Matter Partner straight away if you have any such concerns. You can find out more about the Solicitors Regulation Authority (including their contact details) and the Standards and Regulations that govern the conduct of solicitors and law firms on their website: www.sra.org.uk. Information about how to report a concern is provided at www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor/
12. If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why. You will not incur any fees for any time spent in dealing with your complaint.