We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to sort out any mistakes or misunderstandings, and to improve our standards. This procedure applies to complaints whether about our service or about our fees.
If you have a complaint, please raise the problem with the lawyer responsible for your matter, or if you prefer, the director supervising that lawyer.
If the lawyer handling the matter cannot resolve your complaint by discussion with you, we will treat it as a formal complaint.
What will happen next?
We will investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the supervising director reviewing your file and speaking to the member of staff who acted for you.
The supervising director will within 14 days either respond to your complaint or will inform you as to progress of the investigation. They may invite you to discuss the matter, either in person or by telephone, in order to resolve or clarify your complaint.
The supervising director will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including their suggestions for resolving the matter, and will aim to do so within 28 days of your complaint. If they need to speak to you to clarify matters and that causes a delay, they will respond within 7 days thereafter. Sometimes, however, investigations can take time and we may need to extend the time it takes to reply.
If you are not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for our complaints officer or, if the complaint is in relation to them, someone unconnected with the matter at the firm to review the decision. The complaints officer may, in order to respond properly to your complaint, delegate tasks to members of staff with appropriate experience and seniority.
Our complaints officer is Mark Aspin, whose contact details are:
Viaduct House, Carlisle, CA3 8EZ; mark.aspin@cartmells.co.uk; 01228 516666.
We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons. If the complaints officer wishes to speak to you to clarify matters and that requires a delay, they will write to you within 7 days thereafter.
If you are still not satisfied, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ; 0300 555 0333 or at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk. 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 service cannot be used by businesses or most other organisations unless they are below certain size limits. Further details are available from the Legal Ombudsman at www.legalombudsman.org.uk.
Other Alternative Dispute Resolution services providers exist that are competent to deal with complaints in the legal sector, including ProMediate. However, the Legal Ombudsman offers our clients the most appropriate forum to seek resolution of their concerns. Therefore we have not adopted an alternative ADR procedure and do not agree to use another ADR organisation.
If we have to change any timescales or depart from our normal procedure for any reason we will let you know and explain why. You are able to use the Legal Ombudsman’s service before receiving our final decision if we have not been able to resolve the complaint within 8 weeks of receiving it.
