Complaints Procedure

We value our clients and are committed to providing a high quality legal service to all our clients. However, if at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service we have provided then you should inform us immediately, so that we can do our best to resolve the problem. This will help us improve our standards.

In the first instance it may be helpful to contact the person who is working on your case to discuss your concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues at this stage.

If you would like to make a formal complaint, our Complaints Policy details who to contact should you be unhappy with our service and have been unable to resolve the matter with the person dealing with your case. It also explains what will happen from the point of the complaint onwards.

Making a complaint will not affect how we handle your case.

Complaints Policy

If you have a complaint please write to us with full details of your concerns. Our client care partner Mr P J Smith has responsibility for dealing with complaints. You can contact him at Towneley House, Kingsway, Burnley, BB11 1BJ. Alternatively you can contact him at clientcare@sjlaw.co.uk.

What Will Happen Next?

We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint, advising the name of the person who will be handling your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain the details set out. You can expect to receive our letter within 5 days of us receiving your complaint.

We will record your complaint in our Central Register and open a file for your complaint.

We will then start to investigate your complaint. This may involve one or more of the following steps:

We may ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint within five days. We may examine their reply and the information in your complaint file. We may then ask them for more information.

We may invite you to meet the partner handling the complaint to discuss and hopefully resolve the complaint.

Within two days of the meeting, we will write to confirm what took place, and any solutions we have agreed with you. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible we will send you a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include our suggestions for resolving the matter. This will happen within five days of us completing the investigation.

At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you can contact us again. We will then arrange for someone in the company, who has not been involved in your complaint, to review our decision and inform you of the outcome.

If you are still not satisfied you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to look into the matter. They have time limits for making a complaint to them, these can be found at www.legalombudsman.org.uk/. Normally you will need to bring a complaint to them within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority

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. More details can be found at: www.sra.org.uk

The Legal Ombudsman

If you are still not satisfied you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to look into the matter. Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. They have time limits for making a complaint to them, these can be found at www.legalombudsman.org.uk/ . Normally you will need to bring a complaint to them:

Within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint; and
No more than six years from the date of act/omission; or
No more than three years from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.

Please note that with effect from 1st April 2023 the time limits are changing. After that date you will normally need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman not later than:

One year from the date of the act or omission being complained about; or
One year from the date when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.

If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, the contact details are:

The Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806 Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ;www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Helpline number 0300 555 0333 (calls are charged at local rate and will be recorded).

If you are calling from overseas, please call +44 121 245 3050; For the minicom call 0300 555 1777; email enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk.

Please note the Legal Ombudsman may not deal with a complaint about a bill if you have applied to the court for assessment of that bill.

If we still cannot settle the matter, we will provide the name and web address of an ADR approved body, which would be competent to deal with the complaint, should both parties wish to use the scheme.

If our contract with you was made online, then you also have the right to submit your complaint via an online form which can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/odr for this purpose, our email address is clientcare@sjlaw.co.uk