Complaints Procedure
COMPLAINTS HANDLING 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 to improve our standards.
If you have a complaint please contact us in writing, by email or by telephone with the details. It is not essential, but we do prefer it to be in writing to avoid any misunderstandings.
What will happen next?
- Assuming your complaint is not resolved within 5 working days of receiving it, we will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of it within 10 working days of receiving it, enclosing a copy of this procedure.
- Our complaints officer, Anna Mills Morgan, will then investigate your complaint by review of the matter file and speak to the member of staff who acted for you.
- She may then invite you (if possible and/or appropriate) to a meeting to discuss and hopefully to resolve your complaint. She will do this within 15 working days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
- Within 40 working days of receiving your complaint or within 5 working days of the meeting taking place, Anna Mills Morgan will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint including suggestions for resolving it.
- At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for Andrew Foley-Jones to review the decision.
- Andrew Foley-Jones will write to you within 15 working days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position and explaining our reasons.
We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If you remain dissatisfied at the end of our complaints process, you would then be at liberty to contact the Legal Ombudsman, an organisation which investigates complaints about poor service from lawyers. The Legal Ombudsman can investigate complaints up to one year from the date of the act or when you found out about the problem, or within six months of our final response. If you wish to refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, provided we have given a final written response to your complaint within eight weeks of receiving it, this must be done within six months of the date of our final written response to your complaint.
If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, their contact details are as follows:-
- Visit www.legalombudsman.org.uk
- Call 0300 555 0333 between 8.30am to 5.30pm (calls to 03 numbers will cost no more than calls to national geographic numbers (starting 01 or 02) from both mobiles and landlines. Calls are recorded and may be used for training and monitoring purposes.)
- For minicom call 0300 555 1777
- e-mail enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
- Postal address: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ
The Law Society is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 but responsibility for regulation and complaints handling has been separated from the Law Society’s representative functions. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is the independent regulatory body of the Law Society and the Legal Complaints Service is the independent complaints handling body of the Law Society.
