Complaints Policy
Pattersons Commercial Law is 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. Whenever possible, please raise any initial client care problems with the person acting on your matter to give them the opportunity of resolving the matter with you. Often matters can be quickly resolved in this way.
Our complaints procedure
If you have a concern or a complaint that has not been dealt with to your satisfaction by the person handling your matter, please contact us as soon as you are aware of the problem so this can be addressed.
What will happen next?
1. We will send to you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within 5 working days of our receiving the complaint, enclosing a copy of this procedure.
2. We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing your complaint to a Director who will review your matter file and consult with the member of staff who is acting for you.
3. The investigating Director will then send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including his or her suggestions for resolving the matter, within 21 days of our sending you the acknowledgement letter.
4. Once you have received our detailed written reply, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again to explain why you remain unhappy with our response and we will review your comments. Depending on the reason for your unhappiness, we may, at this stage, arrange for another Director or if appropriate, our Managing Director to review the decision.
5. 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.
6. If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.
7. If you are still not satisfied, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider your complaint. We hope that this does not become necessary and that we can resolve matters between ourselves. The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are:
Address: PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ
Telephone: 0300 555 0333 -from 8.30 am to 5.30 pm
E-mail: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Normally, you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint and within the following timescales:
no later than one year from the date of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring ; or
no more than one year from when you should reasonably have known there were grounds for complaint.
Solicitors Regulation Authority
If someone thinks a solicitor might be dishonest or you have concerns about their ethics or integrity, they have the right to notify our regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). There are no time limits for making a report but there are limits on what the SRA will consider. Please note that the SRA is unable to deal with issues of poor service (complaints of this nature should instead be referred to the Legal Ombudsman). For further information about the SRA’s role, please contact the SRA or visit: https://www.sra.org.uk