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.

Let us have the details if you have a complaint, preferably in writing.

What will happen next?

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain the details set out. You can expect to receive our letter within seven working days of us receiving your complaint.

2. We will record your complaint in our central register and open a separate file for your complaint. We will do this within seven working days of receiving your complaint.

3. Our acknowledgement letter will confirm what will happen next. This will normally involve the following steps.

4. We will pass your complaint to a Partner or Consultant in the firm, generally someone who has not been involved with the conduct of your case, whose name will be provided to you within seven working days (“the Investigating Officer”).

5. The Investigating Officer will then invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. The Investigating Officer will do this within seven working days of the appointment.

6. Within five working days of the meeting, the Investigating Officer will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions he or she has agreed with you.

7. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, the Investigating Officer will send you a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include the Investigating Officer’s suggestions for resolving the matter. The Investigating Officer will do this within five working days of completing his or her 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 the following way. Your complaint will be referred within the next 28 days to the next available Partners’ meeting and the decision of the Partners will then be given to you within a further 14 days of the date of that meeting.

9. We will write to you to confirm our final position on your complaint and explain our reasons.

10. If you are still unsatisfied, contact the Legal Ombudsman at PO Box 6806 Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ about your complaint. Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of our final decision on your complaint, but for further information, you should contact them at 0300 555 0333 or www.legalombudsman.org.uk.

If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.