Complaints Procedure

Step 1: Speak to the person dealing with your matter

Most concerns can be resolved quickly by raising them with the solicitor handling your case. Please tell us straight away if you are unhappy with any aspect of our service, our charges, or the way your matter is being progressed.

Step 2: Make a formal complaint

If you would rather raise your concern formally, or if you are not satisfied with the response, please write to our Complaints Partner, Cora Valentine-Goddard, at:

Please give us as much detail as you can, including what happened, when, and how you would like us to resolve it.

What happens next

1. We will acknowledge your complaint in writing within five working days of receiving it.
2. We will then investigate. This will usually involve reviewing your file and speaking to the people involved.
3. We will send you a full written response within eight weeks of receiving your complaint, setting out our findings and any action we propose to take.
4. If we need longer, we will let you know and explain why.

If you are not satisfied with our response

If we have been unable to resolve your complaint within eight weeks, or if you are not happy with our response, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider it.

The Legal Ombudsman is a free and independent service that handles complaints about poor service from law firms. You will normally need to refer your complaint to them within six months of our final response, and within one year of the act or omission you are complaining about (or one year of when you should reasonably have realised there was a cause for complaint).

Concerns about professional conduct

The Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints about service. If you have concerns about a solicitor’s professional behaviour or ethics, including dishonesty, discrimination, or a serious breach of the SRA Standards and Regulations, you can report this to the Solicitors Regulation Authority directly.

sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor