Complaints 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 and service.

If you have a complaint, write to our Client Care Manager, Mr Paul Cowdery, with the details. You may have done so already but this notice is still relevant as it explains our processes.

We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint. You can expect to receive our letter within 3 days of us receiving your complaint.

We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the following steps:

• Your complaint will be considered by Mr Cowdery within 7 days.
• He will liaise with the member of staff who acted for you and obtain their comments on your complaint within 7
  days.
• He will then examine their reply and the information in your file and, if necessary, may interview the fee earner
  involved. This may take a further 7 days from receiving their reply and the file.
• If appropriate, Mr Cowdery will invite you to a meeting to discuss your complaint and how it can be resolved. If
  you do not wish to attend a meeting then Mr Cowdery can discuss your complaint by telephone. All matters
  discussed at a meeting or by telephone will be confirmed to you in writing.

Mr Cowdery will then consider your complaint and the response from the fee earner involved in detail and will then write to you with a detailed response. In any event we will endeavour to respond to your complaint within 21 days from receiving it. If for any reason this is not possible then we will write to you and explain the reason for the delay.

Following receipt of our detailed response and any meeting which may take place, if you are still not satisfied with the outcome then you can request an internal review. You should do this within 14 days of being notified of Mr Cowdery’s decision. We will give you information about this in our letter. We will then arrange to review our decision and this will normally involve a review of Mr Cowdery’s decision by another partner of this firm. We hope to be able to complete this review within a further 14 days.

If we are unable to resolve your complaint then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about service issues with lawyers.

For further information you should contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333, or by email at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk. You can write to the Legal Ombudsman at PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH. Please note that the Legal Ombudsman service cannot be used for businesses or most other organisations unless they are below certain size limits. Further details are available from the Legal Ombudsman.

A complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must be made:

• 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.

Please be assured that we will do our best to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction. We will adopt a mediatory approach to your complaint and endeavour to consider your complaint in a fair and reasonable manner. We hope that this will lead to a satisfactory outcome for you. If we have to change any of the timescales we will let you know and explain why.

You also have the right to make a report to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) can help if you are concerned about our conduct. 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.

To make a report see SRA | Reporting a solicitor or firm to us or contact the SRA at Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN. Tel: 0370 606 2555.