Complaints Procedure
Our Complaints Procedure
If you have a complaint, please contact the member of staff who is dealing with your matter in the first instance.
If you are unhappy with the response you receive, then please request that the member of staff arranges for principal Solicitor Ms Salena Dawson to contact you to discuss. If the complaint is in relation to Ms Dawson we will arrange for Consultant Solicitor Ben Dures to contact you.
What will happen next?
- If you do not believe you complaint has been resolved at this point, we will advise you to write a formal complaint to Salena Dawson, who is the person responsible for dealing with client care issues.
You can contact Salena Dawson by email at salena@dawsons-law.co.uk or telephone on 01603 327280.
Ms Dawson will endeavour to resolve your complaint when it is initially made, however, where this is not possible it will be handled in line with the full complaints process below.
- You will send you a letter or email acknowledging receipt of your complaint within a maximum of two working days of us receiving the complaint, enclosing a copy of this procedure.
- Your complaint will be investigated. This will normally involve reviewing your file and speaking to the member of staff who acted for you. If your complaint relates to a matter where the file has been closed, we may need to obtain your file from our archive storage facility.
- We will send you a detailed reply to your complaint, including our suggestions for resolving the matter, within 5 weeks of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
- At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for someone who has not had any dealing with your matter to review the initial decision.
- We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint, and explaining our reasons.
- The firm has eight weeks to consider your complaint.
- If we have been unable to settle your complaint using our internal complaints process you have a right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman (LeO), an independent complaints body, established under the Legal Services Act 2007, that deals with legal services complaints:
- A complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must be made:
- Within six months of receiving our final response to your complaint
and - 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 cause for complaint.
The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are;
Telephone: 0300 555 0333
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Post: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH.
Alternative complaints bodies such as Ombudsman Services, ProMediate and Small Claims Mediation exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme. As a firm we have decided that unresolved complaints will be handled only by the Legal Ombudsman.
Objecting to your bill(s)
You may have the right to object to our bill by applying to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974.
Non-payment of our bill(s)
You should be aware that the firm may be entitled to charge interest if all or part of our bill(s) remain unpaid.
*If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.
SRA
The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority. If you are unhappy about how the LeO or SRA have dealt with your complaint you can complain to the Legal Services Ombudsman (LSO), who is responsible for dealing with complaints about legal professional bodies. The address for the Legal Services Ombudsman is:
Legal Services Ombudsman
3rd Floor Sunlight House
Quay Street Manchester
M3 3JZ
Helpline: 0845 601 0794
E-mail: lso@olso.gsi.gov.uk