We are committed to providing a high quality legal service to all of our clients. In the rare event that something goes wrong we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards and service to you.
Complaints Procedure
If you have a complaint please would you initially complain to the person dealing with the matter either in writing or orally. We do not have many complaints but sometimes misunderstandings arise and can be dealt with amicably and expeditiously.
If the complaint cannot be resolved then please place your complaint in writing and the person who is dealing with your matter will pass details of your complaint on to our Gary Duke-Cohan who is our Client Care partner.
- Within 14 days of receiving the written complaint we will send you an email or letter acknowledging your complaint.
- Your complaint will be recorded and investigated in particular by examining your file and instructions
- Within a further 14 days we will reply substantively and on occasions ask you to confirm or explain any details.
- At this stage if you are still not satisfied you can write to us again. We will then arrange to review our decision. We will generally aim to do this within 14 days and this will happen in one of the following ways:-
(a) Gary Duke-Cohan will review his own decision or
(b) We will arrange for someone else in the firm who has not been involved in your complaint to review it. - We will let you know the result of the review within 14 days at the end of the review. At this time we will write to you confirming our final position on the complaint and explaining our reason.
Legal Ombudsman
We very much hope that this will not be necessary but if you remain dissatisfied after receiving our final response to your complaint (including a complaint relating to an invoice) you can contact the Legal Ombudsman as follows:
Website: legalombudsman.org.uk
Post: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH ; or
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk; or
Telephone: 0300 555 0333 (opening hours between 8:30am to 5:30pm) or if calling from overseas +44 121 245 3050.
If you wish to refer a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, it should be done within:
- Within six months of receiving our final response to your complaint
AND
- No more than one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about; or
- No more than one year from the date when you should reasonably have known that there was cause for complaint
The Legal Ombudsman has restricted the categories of clients who are eligible to complain to it. Broadly speaking, a complainant must be an individual (including trustees, personal representatives and beneficiaries of estates), a small business or a charity or club with an annual net income of less than £1 million. For further guidance please refer to the Legal Ombudsman Scheme Rules and guidance.
If you wish to make a complaint relating to a bill, you must do so within one month of receiving the bill, failing which we will be under no obligation to investigate or to attempt to resolve the complaint. You may also have the right to apply to the court for assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974, or Part 48 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1999 normally within twelve months of delivery of the bill. The Legal Ombudsman may decline to consider your complaint if you have applied to the court for assessment of the bill.
No charge will be made for the time spent in investigating and responding to a complaint.
Information about reporting an individual or firm to the SRA is available on the SRA website. Please note that the SRA does not deal with complaints about poor service.
For more information contact the Legal Ombudsman directly.