1. Our complaints policy

1.1 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.

1.2 If you have a complaint, please contact the firm’s Compliance Manager, either by email to t.clack@wjclaw.co.uk or in writing, marking your letter FAO Compliance Manager. The Compliance Manager will generally act as the investigator in any complaint, unless he considers that the complaint is better dealt with by a Partner within the relevant department. In those cases, the Partner will act as the investigator.

1.3 We have a total of eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time you may complain to the Legal Ombudsman.

2. What will happen next?

1. We will send you a letter or email acknowledging receipt of your complaint within three days of receiving it, enclosing a copy of this procedure.
2. We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the investigator reviewing your matter file and speaking to the member of staff who acted for you.
3. The investigator may then invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint, or will write to you, or ask the member of staff who acted for you to do so. They will do this within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
4. Within three days of the meeting, if there was one, the investigator will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions they have agreed with you.
5. If a meeting did not take place, the investigator will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including their suggestions for resolving the matter, within 21 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for our Senior Partner/Complaints Officer to review the decision.
7. 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.
8. If, for whatever reason, the Senior Partner has already been involved in the thorough review of your matter, we may inform you in our initial detailed written reply (step 5, above) that the initial response should be deemed the firm’s final response in the matter, and that therefore steps 6 and 7 will not apply.
9. If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.

3. Legal Ombudsman

3.1 If you are still not satisfied, you can then contact the Legal Ombudsman about your complaint by writing to:

Legal Ombudsman

PO Box 6167

Slough

SL1 0EH

3.2 The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within a year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within a year of you realising there was a concern. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you.

3.3 For further information, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk.

3.4 Alternatively, you can contact one of the complaints bodies such as ProMediate which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services, should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme, on telephone number 0203 621 3908 or 07827 961764 or by email at enquiries@promediate.co.uk.

3.5 However, we do not agree to use ProMediate.