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Complaints Procedure

We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong we need you to tell us about it. This will help us improve our standards.

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

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or
explain the details set out. We will also let you know the name of the person who will
be dealing with your complaint. You can expect to receive our letter within two days
of us receiving your complaint.

2. We will record your complaint in our central register and open a separate file for your
complaint. We will do this within a day of receiving your complaint.

3. We will then start to investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the
following steps.

  • We will pass your complaint to Miss Christine Ifediora, our Client Care Partner, within three days.
  • Miss. Ifediora will ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint within 5 days.
  • Miss. Ifediora will then examine their reply and the information in your complaint file and if necessary, she may also speak to them. This will take up to three days from receiving their reply and the file.

4. Miss. Ifediora will then invite you to a meeting and discuss and hopefully
resolve your complaint. She will do this within three days.

5. Within two days of the meeting Miss. Ifediora will write you to confirm what
took place and any solutions she has agreed with you. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, Miss. Ifediora will send you a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include her suggestions for resolving the matter. She will do this within five days of completing the investigation.

6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you may contact us again. We will then arrange to review our decision. This will happen in one of the following ways:

  • Another partner of the firm will review Miss. Ifediora’s decision within ten days.
  • We will ask our local Solicitors Regulation Authority or another local firm of solicitors to review your complaint within five days. We will let you know how long this process will take.
  • We will invite you to agree to an independent mediation within five days. We will let you know how long this process will take.

7. We will let you know the result of the review within five days of the end of the
review. At this time we will write you confirming our final position on your
complaint and explaining our reasons.

If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.

WHAT TO DO IF WE CANNOT RESOLVE YOUR COMPLAINT

If your complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction you can contact the Legal Ombudsman
about your complaint. They will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect
how we handle your case.
Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:

  • Within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint and
  • No more than six years from the date of act/omission; or
  • No more than three years from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.

Please add the below paragraphs prior to putting the address and email address of Legal Ombudsman

The time limit for referring a complaint to Legal Ombudsman will be not later than one year from the:

  • Date of the act or omission being complained about; or
  • Date when the complainant should have realised that there was cause for complaint

The Legal Ombudsman has introduced a discretion allowing it to consider whether it is a proportionate use of resources and time to investigate a complaint. This will enable the Legal Ombudsman to dismiss or discontinue a complaint if the loss, detriment or impact is deemed not to be significant. This means that the Legal Ombudsman can conclude that a final decision is not needed on a case if no substantive issue has been raised in response to the investigator’s findings or remedy.

The contact details for the Legal Ombudsman are as follows:

Phone: 0300 555 0333
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Legal Ombudsman

PO Box 6167,

Slough,

SL1 0EH