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

Olympus Avenue, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire CV34 6BF.

If you address your complaint to Peter Beddoes he may, if it is appropriate, refer the complaint to the relevant Head of Department or person specified in the client care letter.

What will happen next?

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain the details. 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 2 working days of us receiving your complaint.
   
   
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 3 working days of your reply.
   
   
4. We will then start to investigate your complaint. This may involve one or more of the following steps:
   
   
   • We may ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint within 5 working days.
   • We may examine their reply and the information in your complaint file. We may then ask them for more information. This will take up to 3 working days from receiving their reply and the file.
     
     
5. We will invite you to meet the person dealing with your complaint to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. We will do this within 3 working days of receiving all the details we need from the member of staff who acted for you.
   
   
6. Within 2 working days of the meeting we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions 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 5 working days of us completing our 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:
    
   
   • The person dealing with the complaint will review his own decision within 5 working days.
   • We will arrange for someone in the firm who has not been involved in your complaint to review it. They will do this within 10 working days.
   • Peter Beddoes our Complaints Officer will review your complaint within 10 working days provided he has not been involved in the original complaint procedure.
   • 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 5 working 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. We will also notify you of your right to refer the matter to Legal Complaints Service (LCS) of 8 Dormer Place, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire CV32 5AE www.legalcomplaints.org.uk.

   
   If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint you can contact them about your complaint but you must do this within the LCS’s current time limit of six months from the end of this firm’s complaints procedure.

If we have to change any of the time-scales above we will let you know and explain why.

If you are unclear about any aspect of the Complaints Procedure or at any stage during the procedure have a query, you are invited to contact Peter Beddoes, the Complaints Officer. If he is unavailable for any reason the matter will be referred to Nick Abell, Senior Partner of the firm.