Complaints
Leathes Prior is committed to providing an excellent service to all of our clients, but if something does go wrong we need you to tell us.
Our commitment to you
- We will be receptive to any complaint and will consider it in detail with the seriousness it merits.
- We will respond to any complaint promptly.
- We will not charge you for investigating complaints.
- Any complaint will be treated confidentially and will not affect our future service to you.
- We regularly review complaints to help improve our service.
Who to contact
Initially, you should raise your concerns with our Risk and Compliance Manager, Adrian Baker. He will either investigate personally or appoint a Partner to do so and report the outcome to you.
Adrian’s contact details are as follows:
74 The Close, Norwich, Norfolk NR1 4DR
clientrelations@leathesprior.co.uk
01603 610911
What we will do
Upon receiving any complaint in writing, we will acknowledge receipt of it as soon as possible. The complaint will be investigated fully and in detail. We may need to contact you for further information. We will aim to provide you with our final views on your complaint within eight weeks unless a short extension of that time period is required, in which case we will discuss that with you.
If you are not satisfied with our response
If we have not resolved your complaint within eight weeks or you are not satisfied with the outcome, you may be able to complain to the Legal Ombudsman. However the Legal Ombudsman is only obliged to deal with your complaint if you are an individual, a business with fewer than 10 employees and turnover or assets not exceeding a certain threshold, a charity or trust with a net income of less than £1m, or if you fall within certain other categories.
In addition, you should be aware that the Legal Ombudsman will be unlikely to accept your complaint if:
- more than one year has elapsed from the date of the act or omission giving rise to the complaint; or
- more than one year has elapsed from the time when you should have known about the complaint.
You can find out more from the Legal Ombudsman. Contact details are as follows:
Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ
enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
0300 555 0333
Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of the date of our final written response to your complaint but for further information, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman.
Whilst Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) bodies exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services, we have however chosen not to adopt an ADR process. If, therefore, you wish to complain further, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman.
If you are a consumer and we have made a contract with you by electronic means you may be entitled to use an EU online dispute resolution service to assist with any contractual dispute you may have with us. That is at: www.europa.eu.
Referring a complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (“SRA”)
If you are concerned about matters such as conduct or ethics, you should report these concerns to the SRA.
Details of how to do this can be found here.
The SRA can be contacted via their website or by the following means:
Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Cube, 199 Wharf Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN
0370 606 2555 (or +44(0)121 329 6800 for international callers)
+44 (0)121 616 1999