Complaints

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. It is important that you are happy with the service that we have provided and that we resolve any issues quickly for you.

Our complaints procedure

Upon becoming aware that you may have a complaint, we will provide you with a copy of this document which sets out and explains the firm’s complaints procedure. If you have a complaint, including a complaint about your bill(s), please write to us with the details.

What will happen next?

1. We will record your complaint in our central register.
2. We will send you a letter acknowledging your written complaint and we may ask you to clarify or explain some of the details you have provided. You can expect to receive our letter within 5 working days of us receiving your written complaint.
3. We will pass your complaint to Ray Crudgington, our Client Care partner, who will investigate the matter and write to you with his findings within 28 days of receiving your written complaint. In some circumstances the time limit may be extended, for example due to staff absence or holiday.
4. Once you have considered the response you will be invited to reply to Ray Crudgington within 14 days of receiving his reply. If we do not hear from you within this time period we shall consider that Ray Crudgington has dealt with your complaint and the matter may be treated as “closed”. If for any reason you need longer to reply please write to us within the 14 day period to request an extension of time. If you require Ray Crudgington to review certain aspects of his response letter please give him an explanation and sufficient information to enable him to do so.
5. Ray Crudgington will respond to your letter within 7 days unless you have requested that he move directly to paragraph 6 below. In some circumstances the time limit may be extended, for example due to staff absence or holiday.
6. If you are not satisfied with the outcome, Ray Crudgington will usually invite you to meet him during normal office hours at a time convenient to you to discuss your complaint with a view to resolving outstanding matters. If Ray Crudgington does not consider it appropriate to meet with you he will explain why. If without good reason you fail to attend the appointment to discuss the matter then we may consider the matter as “closed”.
7. Following any meeting Ray Crudgington will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions he has agreed with you.
8. Should your complaint relate to a matter being handled by Ray Crudgington then Litigation Partner Mike Clary will consider your complaint in accordance with the above procedure.
9. If your complaint is upheld in addition to any practical steps proposed to remedy or resolve the situation the firm may:

a)      offer an apology and assurance that it will not happen again and that we will try to do better

b)      offer a reduction of your bill

c)       offer a total abatement of your bill

d)      notify you of your right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman and the time limits that apply

e)      notify you of your right to see another solicitor and obtain advice as to whether the firm has been negligent

10.Where a complaint raises issues of negligence or potential negligence on the part of the firm we will need to take the advice of our professional indemnity insurers. In such circumstances we may be advised to terminate the operation of our complaints procedure and move directly to paragraph 9(e) above.

11. If you are still not satisfied with our handling of your case or the handling of your complaint you may have a right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman which has formal powers to resolve complaints about lawyers and provides a free and impartial service. The Legal Ombudsman will accept complaints from individual clients, small businesses, charities, clubs, societies, associations and trusts. Complainants must normally try to resolve their complaint via the firm’s internal complaints handling process before they can refer it to the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman allows the lawyer eight weeks to deal with your complaint and therefore your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman should not normally be made until this eight week period has elapsed.

You should note that the Legal Ombudsman will only accept your complaint if it is made within six years of you discovering that there was a problem with the service the lawyer provided or within three years from when you should have known about the complaint or any grounds for such complaint.

Further, the Legal Ombudsman will not accept complaints where the problem giving rise to the complaint or the date when you should have known about the complaint occurred before 6^th October 2010.

Additionally, you should note that a complaint must be referred to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of the date of the final response to your complaint from the person at Grant Saw handling and investigating your complaint. Therefore, in any event you must apply to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of your last contact with ourselves.

Alternative complaints bodies, such as ProMediate exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and the firm wish to use such a scheme.

The website for ProMediate is www.promediate.co.uk and there is a tab for complaints about “professionals”.

We do not agree to use ProMediate.   This is because we consider the service offered by The Legal Ombudsman to be the most appropriate means of resolving any dispute.  However, if you would like to make representations as to why we should use ProMediate on this occasion then you may do so. The ProMediate website is www.promediate.co.uk/complaints-about-lawyers.

We will not consider using ProMediate if the matter has already been dealt with by the Legal Ombudsman

Full details about the Legal Ombudsman and its role can be found at www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Contact details are:

Legal Ombudsman

PO Box 6806

Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ

Tel: 0300 555 0333

Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

We are also required to advise you of the following which is relevant if you have bought a service from us online. The European Union, in order to promote e-commerce, has stipulated that consumers who buy a product or service online should have the ability to submit complaints to traders via an EU platform. The complaint, once submitted, will be transmitted to an alternative dispute resolution entity to try to facilitate a solution. The EU platform service is accessed here.