Our aim is to offer all our clients an efficient and effective service at all times in fact we hope that you will be so pleased with the work we do for you and the result that we achieve that you will recommend us to friends and family. However, should there be any aspect of our service with which you are unhappy, please raise your concern in the first place with the person handling your case.
If that does not resolve the problem to your satisfaction or you would prefer not to speak to the person who has been dealing with the matter for you then you may contact the owner of the firm Donna Hodge by post or by calling the office. You may also wish to email her at donna@acclaimls.co.uk . She will then make our complaints procedure available to you.
If we are not able to resolve your complaint internally within the eight weeks we are allowed, then you should be aware that the Legal Ombudsman which is set up by the Office for Legal Complaints now deals with complaints against lawyers. Therefore if you have a complaint about us or the bill at the end of your case then you should raise the matter with the Legal Ombudsman via their website www.legalombudsman.org.uk or telephone 0300 555 0333 or by email to enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or by writing to the Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH.
It is really important that you bring your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman no longer than six months after the date of our final response, and within six years of when the problem you complained about happened. If the problem happened more than six years ago, the complaint should have been referred to the Legal Ombudsman within three years of you becoming aware of the problem. They have strict time limits and if you fail to meet these, it is unlikely that they would be able to investigate your complaint as they would only be able to investigate complaints which fall outside their time limits in exceptional circumstances as outlined in their April 2019 Scheme Rules, section 4.7.
After the 1st April 2023, you cannot use the Legal Ombudsman unless you have first used the our complaints procedure. You can use the Legal Ombudsman if the complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within eight weeks of being made to us; or an ombudsman considers that there are exceptional reasons to consider the complaint sooner, or where an ombudsman considers that in-house resolution is not possible due to irretrievable breakdown in the relationship between you and our firm.
If you remain dissatisfied with our response to your complaint, or we have not responded within 8 weeks you must refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of the date of the our written response. Further you must refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman no later than one year from the act or omission you are complaining about.
Ultimately we are regulated by the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority (the SRA). They can be contacted via their website www.sra.org.uk where you can obtain a copy of the Solicitor’s Handbook which contains all the regulations we are bound by.