We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we need our clients to tell us about it. This will help improve our standards. Whenever possible, please raise any initial client care problems with the person acting on your case to give them the opportunity of resolving matters with you. Often, matters can be quickly resolved in this way.
If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you have received, or about the bill, please contact us.
We have a procedure in place which details how we handle complaints as follows:
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- We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within two working days of receiving it. We will enclose a copy of this procedure if you have not already been supplied with a copy.
- We will investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing your complaint to one of our Directors Natasha Atkins, who will review your matter file and speak to the member of staff who acted for you. In the event of Mrs Atkins absence, or if the complaint is regarding Mrs Atkins, the complaint will be dealt with by another Director.
- If required we may invite you to a meeting in person or over the telephone if we require any further information or have the need to discuss the matter with you further.
- Within four weeks of the date of our receipt of the complaint we will write to you to confirm the details of our investigation and set out our decision taking into account any solution which may have been agreed with you if we have discussed the complaint.
- At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for a third party to review the decision.
- We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
- If you are still not satisfied with our handling of your complaint you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. We would hope that this does not become necessary and that we can resolve matters between ourselves.Contact details are as follows:
Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6167
Slough
SL1 0EH
Updated: 22/01/2024 - The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within one year of you realising there was a concern. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you.
- If we have to change any of the above timescales we will let you know and explain why.
Alternative complaints bodies (such as ProMediate and Small Claims Mediation) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm consent to use such a scheme. In the event that you wish to use an alternative complaint body you should advise us and we will then state if we agree.
The procedure above also applies to complaints arising concerning our bill. There may also be a right to object to the bill by applying to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974; The Legal Ombudsman may not consider a complaint about a bill if you have applied to the Court for assessment of that bill.
