GGP Law
Complaints
GGP Law
Complaints
We are pleased to confirm that the incidence of complaints against fee earners and other staff in this practice is very small. We do however, operate a complaints handling procedure. Our policy and procedure is set out below.
Our Complaints Policy
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.
Our Complaints Procedure
If you have a complaint, please contact, in the first instance, the fee earner handling your case. If you feel that you cannot resolve matters with the fee earner concerned, have failed to resolve the matter with the fee earner concerned or simply do not want to refer to the fee earner concerned please contact Mr Simon Bird, our Complaints Handling Officer at: 17-19 Cardiff Street Aberdare CF44 7DP telephone 01685 885500. E-mail: [email protected]
What Will Happen Next?
Within 3 working days we shall send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain any details. We may even attempt to deal with your complaint in our letter if we consider that we have a full understanding of the issues and it is a matter capable of being resolved in this way. If it seems appropriate we will suggest a meeting at this stage. We shall also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint.
- Your complaint will be recorded in our register and a specific file directly dealing with your complaint will also be opened. We shall investigate your complaint by examining your file of papers, making enquiries of those involved in working on your file and any relevant third parties.
- If appropriate, we shall then invite you to meet our Mr Bird to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. We would hope to be in a position to meet with you in this way in no longer than 14 days after first receiving your complaint. If you would prefer not to meet, or if we cannot arrange this within an agreeable time scale, Mr Bird will write to you setting out his views on the situation and any re-dress that we feel to be appropriate.
- Within 3 days of any meeting we shall write to you confirming what took place and any suggestions that we have agreed with you. In appropriate cases we could offer an apology, a reduction of any bill or reimbursement in full, or in part, of any payment received.
- At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, please let us know. We shall then arrange to review our decision. We would generally aim to do this within no more than 10 days. This will happen by your complaint being referred to another senior person within our organisation.
- We shall let you know the result of the review within 5 days of the end of the review. At this time we shall write to you confirming our final position on your complaint with a full explanation of our reasons.
- The Legal Ombudsman allows us 8 weeks to resolve your complaint.
- If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. Contact:
Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH.
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Tel: 0300 555 0333,
Email: [email protected]
Time Limits
Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:
- Within six months of receiving our final response to your complaint
and
- No more than one year from the date of act/omission; or
- No more than one year from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
The Legal Ombudsman does have a discretion to extend these time limits where it is considered “fair and reasonable to do so”.
Further Information.
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 concerns about the conduct of your solicitor or the firm representing you with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Cube, 199, Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN
Website: www.sra.org.uk
Email: [email protected]
