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 start to investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the following steps:
(i) We will pass your complaint to the relevant Departmental Client Care Partner, within three days.
(ii) He (or she) will ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint within 5 days.
(iii) He (or she) will then examine their reply and the information in your complaint file. And, if necessary, he or she may also speak to them. This will take up to three days from receiving their reply and the file.
4. The Departmental Client Care Partner will then invite you to a meeting and discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. He will do this within three days.
5. Within two days of the meeting the Departmental Client Care Partner will write to you to confirm what took place and any solution he (or she) has agreed with you.
If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, the Departmental Client Care Partner will send you a detailed reply to your compliant. This will include his (or her) suggestions for resolving the matter. He (or she) will do this within five days of completing the investigation.
6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you contact us again. We will then arrange to review our decision. This will happen in one of the following ways:
(i) Another Partner of the firm will review the Departmental Client Care Partner’s decision within 10 days.
(ii) We will ask our local Law Society or another local firm of Solicitors to review your complaint within five days. We will let you know how long this process will take.
(iii) We will invite you to agree to 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 to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining the reasons. We will also give you the name and address of The Legal Ombudsman. If you are still not satisfied you can contact the Legal Ombudsman about your complaint.
If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.
Making a complaint will not affect how we handle your case.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.
You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
