Complaints Procedure

Our complaints policy

We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. We take seriously all expressions of dissatisfaction from our clients. All complaints are recorded and logged centrally to enable us to detect recurring problems and trends. As necessary, we will implement corrective action in response to individual complaints and measures to prevent adverse trends and correct recurring problems, with a view to constantly improving the service we offer. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards.

Our complaints procedure

If you have a complaint, please contact our Client Care Partner, who is the partner responsible for dealing with client care issues, in writing with the details. Our Client Care partner is currently Stuart Barry. You can contact Stuart by post of email at stuart.barry@swanturton.com.  If Stuart Barry is the subject of your complaint, we will nominate another partner to fulfil the role of Client Care Partner for your complaint.

What happens next?

  1. We will send you a letter or an email acknowledging receipt of your complaint (and asking you to confirm or explain details of your complaint if we are unclear about them) together with a copy of this procedure. You can expect to receive our letter or email within 3 working days of our receiving your complaint.
  2. We will record your complaint in our central register.
  3. We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve reviewing your file and speaking to the member of staff who acted for you. If your complaint relates to a matter where the file has been closed, we may need to obtain the file from our archive storage facility, which may take 1-2 working days.
  4. The Client Care Partner will then send you a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include his suggestions for resolving the matter. A detailed reply will be sent within 15 working days of sending you the letter or email acknowledging your complaint.
  5. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, please contact us again in writing and we will ask another partner of the firm who has had no prior involvement with your matter to review the initial decision.
  6. We will write to you within 15 working days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
  7. If you are still not satisfied, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) on 0300 555 0333 or in writing to PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH.

Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

The LeO will not normally deal with complaints unless our complaints procedure has been exhausted and the LeO allows us to do this within eight weeks.

The LeO asks that you contact his office within six months of the date of our writing to you to confirm our final position.

Usually complaints must be made to the LeO within one year of the date that the act or omission complained of took place or within one year of the date on which you should have known about the complaint.

The LeO will not deal with complaints from large businesses (see the LeO website for details).

If we have to change any of the timescales in paragraphs 1-6 above, we will let you know and explain why.