Complaints Procedure

Our complaints policy

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.

Our complaints procedure

If you have a complaint, please contact John Palmer, our client care partner.  You can write to him at our London office.  If the complaint is in relation with a matter dealt with by him then he will pass the correspondence on to Victor Fanawopo, another Partner at the firm.

What will happen next?

  1. A letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain the details will be sent to you. 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 yours.
  2. We will record your complaint in our central register and open a file for your complaint. We will do this within a day of receiving your complaint.
  3. We will acknowledge your reply to our acknowledgement letter and confirm what will happen next. You can expect to hear from us within three days of your reply.
  4. We will then start to investigate your complaint. This may involve one or more of the following steps:
    (i) we may ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint within five days;
    (ii) we may examine the reply and the information in your complaint file.
    (iii) we may then ask them for more information.  This will take up to three days from receiving the reply and the file.
  5. We will invite you to meet our client care partner to discuss and, it is hoped, resolve your complaint.  We will do this within three days of receiving all the details we need from the member of staff who acted for you.
  6. Within two days of the meeting we will write to you to confirm what took place and any suggestions we have agreed with you.
  7. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, we will send you a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include our suggestions for resolving the matter.  This will happen within five days of us completing the investigation.
  8. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you can write to us again. We will then arrange to review our decision.  This will happen in one of the following ways:
    John Palmer will review his own decision within five days;
    We will arrange for someone in the firm who has not been involved in your complaint to review it.  He or she will do this within 10 days;
    John Palmer, our client care partner, will review your complaint within 10 days;
    We will ask our local Law Society 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 independent mediation.  We will let you know how long this process will take.
  9. 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 our reasons.
  10. The Legal Ombudsman can help you if we are unable to resolve your complaint ourselves. 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 our final response to your complaint

    and

    No more than one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about; or
    No more than one year from the date when you should reasonably have known that there was cause for complaint.

    For more information about the Legal Ombudsman contact:

    www.legalombudsman.org.uk

    Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9.00 to 17.00.

    Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

    Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ

    All reference above to ‘days’ means business days when our office is normally open. If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.

  11. The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help 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.

    Visit their website to see how you can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.