Client Complaints Procedure

We are committed to providing a quality legal service to all of our clients. If you feel unhappy with the way that we are handling matters, do not hesitate to speak to your lawyer about it. We understand that clients can feel anxious about legal matters, and we can assure you that your concerns will be dealt with sympathetically and in confidence.

Hopefully they will be able to resolve your concerns. If they are unable to do so or you remain unhappy about the situation, please contact the Compliance Officer for Legal Practice (COLP) at our office.

Your complaint will be dealt with independently by the COLP, and will ordinarily be referred for investigation where the matter cannot be resolved informally. The matter will be dealt with by someone else, where it personally concerns the COLP or they are acting in your case.

You may contact them by telephone, fax or e-mail. It is more helpful in most cases if you write to them, setting out your concerns and what you would ideally like us to do about them. This gives us a clearer idea of the nature of your complaint, and the matters which will need to be looked into. However, if for any reason, you do not feel comfortable about writing to us, please feel free to telephone them, even if only by way of an initial call before writing to us.

What Will Happen Next?

Where it is felt that an initial meeting with them may be of mutual assistance we will invite you to attend if it is convenient for you to do so. You may, in any event, request such a meeting yourself, if you feel your concerns could be better expressed this way. Where a meeting has taken place, our investigations would normally be completed within 3 days of that meeting.

We will either write to you within 3 days of any meeting, to confirm what took place and any solutions that were agreed, or setting out his findings, or, in relatively complex matters, he will invite you to meet with him further to discuss and hopefully resolve your concerns.

If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible to attend, he will send you a detailed reply to your complaint, including suggestions for resolving the matter.

At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, we will arrange for our findings and proposals and all correspondence relating to the matter to be independently reviewed. This will happen, depending upon the nature of your concerns, and at our discretion, either by:

a) asking our local Law Society or another local firm of solicitors to review your complaint;

b) inviting you to agree to independent mediation.

We will let you know within 3 days of receipt of your letter, who is going to review the matter and how long this will take.

We will immediately let you know the outcome of any review as soon as we have been informed of their decision. At this time we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

Should you remain dissatisfied despite our best endeavours, you then have a right to refer the matter to the Legal Ombudsman Service within 6 months of the conclusion of our internal complaints procedures.

PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ,

or at [email protected]

or by telephone: 0300 555 0333.

The Legal Ombudsman Service have jurisdiction to hear a complaint within a period of 6 years from date of the act or ommission complained of or 3 years from date when the client ought reasonably to have known that a cause for complaint had arisen. That period could be extended, if the LeO considered it reasonable to do so.