Standard of Service and Complaints Procedure

• Firstly, you should contact the fee earner who is dealing with your matter and raise any issues that concern you; we often find that this can be dealt with orally and matters can be resolved quickly.
• If you are still dissatisfied with the response that you have received from the fee earner concerned, you should put your complaint in writing to them, identifying the specific issues you are concerned about and what remedy/resolution you are seeking.
• The fee earner will pass your complaint to either Mark Sinnott (for commercial matters) or Steven Tregear (for litigation matters), who will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within three working days.
• Your complaint will then be investigated fully by either Mr Sinnott or Mr Tregear and in carrying out their investigation they may seek further information from you and/or clarify what remedy you are seeking.
• Within 21 days following the acknowledgment of your complaint, a full written response will be sent to you and, where appropriate, a remedy offered.
• In the event that you are dissatisfied with either the result of the investigation, or the remedy offered, then you may appeal the decision in writing to the Managing Partner, Mr Simon Esplen, within 14 days. Mr Esplen will then undertake an internal review of the process and decision within 14 days of receipt of the appeal.  Mr Esplen will then invite you to attend a meeting to discuss his findings, which will then be confirmed in writing.  If you do not wish to attend a meeting then Mr Esplen will send you his findings in writing.
• In the unlikely event that you are still dissatisfied, you may wish to refer the matter to the Legal Ombudsman (by email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or by telephone on 0300 555 0333) to consider the complaint. Normally you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint.  You also need to refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within one year of the problem you are complaining about happening, or if the problem occurred more than one year ago, you need to bring your complaint within one year of you becoming aware of the problem.
• Please note that your complaint may include a complaint about our bill. You may also have a right to object to our bill by applying to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974 but if you make such an application in respect of any bill then the Legal Ombudsman may not deal with a complaint about such bill.