Complaints
We hope of course that, once you become a client of this practice, everything will be carried out to your satisfaction. However, should there be any aspect of our service with which you are unhappy, please refer it firstly to the solicitor or other legal professional who has conduct of your matter. Thereafter, if you are not satisfied, please refer any issue to the Head of the relevant Department, whose name and contact details you will find in this website’s “Our Team” section. If, for any reason, you are still dissatisfied, then please contact our Complaints Director, Caroline Batko (cab@wdavies.com). Our full Complaints Procedure is set out below.
If you remain unsatisfied then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH. Before bringing a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, you need to ensure that you have given us an opportunity to deal with your complaint under the Complaints Procedure set out below. In the unlikely event that we do not respond to your complaint within eight weeks of making your complaint, you can refer the complaint directly to the Legal Ombudsman. However, if we have responded to your complaint within eight weeks then you may refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman once we have made it clear to you that we have issued our final response to your complaint.
You must refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you.
Please note that from the 1st April 2023 the Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them no more than one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about or no more than one year from the date when you should reasonably have known that there was a cause for complaint, unless exceptional circumstances apply. If you fail to comply with the Legal Ombudsman time limits then it is unlikely that they will investigate your complaint unless it is fair and reasonable to do so.
Our Complaints procedure is as follows:
- Your complaint need not be made in writing – but this is preferable, not least for clarity.
- We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within five working days of receiving your complaint and we will enclose a copy of this procedure. We will investigate your complaint. Initially, the complaint will be referred to the Head of the Department to which the member of staff dealing with your matter belongs; that departmental Head will review the file and speak to that member of staff.
- We will write to you within fourteen days* of the acknowledgement letter reporting to you on the complaint and inviting you to attend a meeting to resolve the matters, if you wish to do so.
- You will receive a letter within five working days of any such meeting stating the outcome of any such meeting; if no such meeting takes place, we shall write to you, without delay, setting out our conclusions on the complaint.
- If you are not happy with the response of the solicitor in charge of the department, or if your complaint is about that solicitor, then you may contact our Complaints Director, Caroline Batko (cab@wdavies.com). Your complaint will be acknowledged within five working days and you will receive a report within fourteen days* and be invited to a meeting to resolve the complaint. You will receive a letter within five days of any such meeting stating the outcome of it and our final conclusions in relation to the complaint.
- If you remain unsatisfied then you may, within six months of our final conclusions, contact the Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH, about your complaint, as detailed above.
*Where any matter is particularly complicated it may be necessary to take more than fourteen days to answer the complaint in detail. In all such cases you will be told in the acknowledgement letter at any stage, when you can expect a response.
Referring a complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
You can also raise concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) if you think that we are in breach of an SRA Principle. The SRA Principles govern the conduct of solicitors and those authorised by the SRA to provide legal services. You can find the SRA Principles by clicking on the following link: www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/standards-regulations/principles. Please note that the SRA does not deal with complaints about poor service.
The SRA’s contact details are as follows:
Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Cube, 199 Wharf Street, Birmingham B1 1RN
Telephone: 0370 606 2555 (+44 (0) 121 329 6800 for international callers)
Fax: +44 (0) 121 616 1999
