Complaints Policy
Our complaints procedure
If you have a complaint, please contact Michael Robson, our client care Director.
You can contact him at 1 St Andrew’s Place, Penrith, Cumbria, CA11 7AW. Telephone 01768 862007 or email at [email protected]: If we have to change any of the timescales set out below we will let you know and explain why.
What will happen next?
- We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain any details. If it seems appropriate we will suggest a meeting at this stage. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint.
- We will then record your complaint in our central register and open a file for your complaint. We will also investigate your complaint by examining the relevant file.
- If appropriate we will then invite you to meet our client care Director (or another Director ) to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. We would hope to be in a position to meet with you in this way no longer than 14 days after first receiving your complaint. If you would prefer not to meet, or if we cannot arrange this within an agreeable timescale, our client care Director will write fully to you setting out his views on the situation and any redress that we would feel to be appropriate.
- After the meeting we will write to you to confirm what took place and any suggestions that we have agreed with you.
- At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, please let us know. We will then arrange to review our decision. We would generally aim to do this within 10 days. This will happen in one of the following ways:
- our client care Director will review his own decision.
- We will arrange for a Director in the firm who has not been involved in your complaint to review it.
- We will ask our local Law Society or another local firm of solicitors to review your complaint. 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.
- We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If you remain dissatisfied at the end of our complaints process, you would then be at liberty to contact the Legal Ombudsman, an organisation which investigates complaints about poor service from lawyers. The Legal Ombudsman can investigate complaints up to one year from the date of the act/omission or one year from when the complainant should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint. If you wish to refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, this must be done within six months of our final response to your complaint.
- If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, their contact details are as follows:-
- Visit www.legalombudsman.org.uk
- Call 0300 555 0333 between 8.30am to 5.30pm (calls to 03 numbers will cost no more than calls to national geographic numbers (starting 01 or 02) from both mobiles and landlines. Calls are recorded and may be used for training and monitoring purposes.)
- For minicom call 0300 555 1777
- e-mail [email protected]
- Postal address: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH
You also can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority whose contact details are:- https://www.sra.org.uk/
Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN
Telephone Number: 0370 606 2555
