Our Complaints Handling 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 Handling Procedure

If you have a concern or complaint, please contact Martin Stevens, as Complaints Partner, as soon as you are aware of the problem so this can be addressed, or if the complaint is against him, then either Mark Dewey or Andrew Doinik.

What Will Happen Next?

1. Within 2 working days of receipt of your complaint, we will send you a letter of acknowledgment and within it may ask you to confirm or clarify some of the detail. The letter will also provide the name of the matter prior to a full investigation of the complaint.

2. Your complaint will be separately filed and centrally registered.

3. If we have asked you to confirm or clarify some of the detail in writing, we will, within 3 working days of your reply, acknowledge your reply and explain what will happen next.

4. We will pass your complaint to our Complaint Handling Partner, currently Martin Stevens, within 3 working days

5. The Complaint Handling Partner will ask the member of staff who acted for you in respect of the original matter to reply to your complaint within 5 working days (provided they are in the office during this period – if they are not you will be informed regarding any potential delay.

6. Within 3 working days of the reply referred to, at (3) above having been sent to you, the Complaint Handling Partner will examine its content and will meet with the member of staff concerned having previously reviewed the information contained within your file.

7. Our Complaint Handling Partner will then invite you to discuss the findings, and hopefully, it will be possible to resolve your complaint. This will be done within 5 working days.

8. Within a further 5 working days of meeting you, our Client Care Partner will write to you to confirm what took place and give detail of any solutions that may have been agreed.

9. If a meeting is not considered appropriate, then we will explain why we do not believe a meeting is necessary. In these circumstances, we will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including suggestions for resolving the matter, within 28 days of sending you the acknowledgment letter.

10. If you confirm this to be the case we will arrange for a review of our proposed solution (s) to take place. This will happen in one of the three following ways:

• Another Partner within Hallett & Co will review the proposal. You will be informed which Partner is undertaking file reviews.

• The Kent Law Society or another local firm of solicitors will be invited to review your complaint. We will formally invite them to do so within 5 working days of you confirming that you are not satisfied with the Complaint Handling Partner’s proposal (s). We will then let you know how long this process is likely to take.

• We will invite you to agree to independent mediation within 5 working days of you confirming that you are not satisfied with the Complaint Handling Partner’s proposal (s). We will then let you know how long this process is likely to take. 

11. Where any complaint relates to our bill then you may also have a right to object to the bill by making a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman or by applying to the Court for an assessment of the bill under the Solicitors Act 1974 however, the Legal Ombudsman may not consider a complaint about our bill if you have applied to the Court for an assessment.

12. Depending on the nature of the complaint you may invited to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint if it is considered that such a meeting is in the best interests of both parties, and will facilitate a resolution. If appropriate, you will be invited to attend a meeting within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgment letter.

13. If you are still not satisfied, you can then contact the Legal Ombudsman at PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0 0EH about your complaint. Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must be made within six months of you receiving a final response from us. From 1 February 2013, the time limits for the Legal Ombudsman accepting a complaint have increased to six years from the date of act/omission, and three years from the date the complainant should reasonably have known that there were grounds for complaint. For further information you should contact The Legal Ombudsman on telephone number, 0300 555 0333 or at www.legalombudsman.org.uk.

14. If you have complained to your solicitor about the firm breaching the SRA Code of Conduct and you are not satisfied with our response, you can report the firm to the SRA at https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor .