Complaints Procedure

We aim to offer all our clients an efficient, effective and high quality service and we encourage feedback from Clients about our services and our Partners and staff. Our procedure is set out below.

If you are not happy with the services we have provided, including our bills or any aspect of the way in which your instructions are being handled, please speak to the Partner dealing with your matter in the first instance.

If they are unable to resolve any problem to your satisfaction or if you would prefer to speak to another partner please contact Michael Tucker, the firm’s Senior Partner by email on michael@davidjfostersolicitors.co.uk.

He will ask you to write to us to confirm the details of your complaint, including:

• your full name and contact details;
• what you think we have got wrong;
• what you hope to achieve as a result of your complaint; and
• your file reference number (if you have it).

Thereafter:

1. We will record your complaint in our central register and send you a letter acknowledging your complaint within 5 working days. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint. Typically this will be our Senior Partner although exceptionally he may allocate a member of the firm’s management in his place.
2. Our Senior Partner will investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the following steps:
3. He will ask the partner or member of staff who acted for you to draft a reply to your complaint.
4. He will then examine your complaint and their draft reply. He may also speak to them and other staff involved with your assignment, and if necessary review your file(s) and correspondence, time records and other relevant documentation. We may also suggest a meeting with you to discuss and, we hope, resolve your complaint.
5. Our Senior Partner will aim to finalise his investigation and respond to your complaint within 15 working days of the date of our letter of acknowledgement. This response may include suggestions for resolving the matter.  If we need longer to investigate your complaint, we will contact you to confirm this and aim to complete our investigation within a further 10 working days. If the matter is particularly complex, we may write to you again to confirm any further extension. We will in any event provide you with a substantive response within 40 working days of receiving your complaint.
6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you can write to us again. We will then arrange to review our decision, typically by a Partner sitting on our management committee.
7. We will let you know the result of that review within 10 working days confirming our final position on your complaint.
8. If we are unable to resolve your complaint then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about service issues with lawyers.

The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within one 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.

The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are as follows:

Telephone: 0300 555 0333 (international: +44 121 245 3050)

Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6167,
Slough,
SL1 0EH

If you think a solicitor might be dishonest or you have concerns about their ethics or integrity, you also 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 not able 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 visit: https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers.