We hope that you are happy with the service we provide.

If at any stage you have concerns or wish to make a complaint please tell the person handling your matter straight away about the nature of your concern.

If you do not feel comfortable speaking with the individual handling your matter then you can contact our complaints partner directly (Paul Thompson). If this does not resolve your concerns and you wish to make a formal complaint, please contact the complaints partner to obtain a copy of the procedures which we will follow to resolve your complaint. This process involves an investigation of the concerns by our complaints partner (or a senior member of our firm). We will then write to you within 8 weeks setting out our final response to the complaint and how you can pursue your concerns further if you do not agree with our proposed resolution / outcome.  

Individual consumers and smaller organisations may be entitled to complain to the Legal Ombudsman about our service if they remain dissatisfied. The Legal Ombudsman would generally expect clients to follow a firm’s internal complaints procedure first however.

Complaints to the Legal Ombudsman should normally be made within six months of receiving our final response to your complaint and no more than 6 years from the date of when the problem arose (or if you were not initially aware of the problem, within 3 years of when you should reasonably have known that there was cause for complaint). However, please note that from 1 April 2023 these time limits changed. From 1 April 2023 the Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within a year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within a year of you realising there was a concern. The requirement to refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you remains the same. 

You can find further information about the Legal Ombudsman on the website www.legalombudsman.org.uk. You can write to the Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH or by email on enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or call on 0300 555 0333.  

Alternative complaints / dispute resolution bodies do also exist (such as Ombudsman Services, ProMediate and Small Claims Mediation) which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services if we both agree to use such a scheme. If we agree to use such a scheme we will inform you when notifying you of our final response to your complaint. 

If your concern relates to one of our bills, you may also have the right to apply to court for an assessment of the bill under Part lll Solicitors Act 1974. You should be aware though that the Legal Ombudsman may not consider your complaint if you make an application to court.

Please note that the Legal Ombudsman is there to deal with concerns about the level of service which a client has received. Where there are more serious concerns that a solicitor or solicitor’s firm have been involved in professional misconduct then reports can also be made to the SRA, the regulator of solicitors and solicitor firms. This could be for quite unusual and serious acts of misconduct such as dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.