Our Complaints Policy

Penderlaw is 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 concern or a complaint that has not been dealt with to your satisfaction by the person handling your case, please contact us as soon as you are aware of the problem so this can be addressed. Please contact the Practice Manager, Sara Tucker at Penderlaw, High Cross, Truro TR1 2AJ, email management@penderlaw.co.uk or telephone 01872 241408. 

What will happen next?

  1. We will  acknowledge receipt of your complaint within seven working days of receiving the complaint and send to you a copy of our complaints procedure. 
  2. We will then investigate your complaint by initially reviewing your matter file and discussing with the relevant members of the team who handled your matter. 
  3. Within twenty-one working days of receipt of your complaint, we will then hope to resolve your complaint by either arranging a meeting or telephone call with you or by addressing the points in writing.  
  4. Within seven working days of the contact at step 3 above we will write to you to confirm any solutions we have agreed with you.
  5. If you do not want a meeting, or it is not possible, we will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including his suggestions for resolving the matter, within twenty-eight days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
  6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again to explain why you remain unhappy with our response and we will review your comments. Depending on the matter we may at this stage arrange for another member of staff to review the decision.
  7. We will write to you within twenty-one working days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
  8. If you are still not satisfied, you can then contact the Legal Ombudsman at Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ or call 0300 555 0333 about your complaint. The Legal Ombudsman can help you if we are unable to resolve your complaint ourselves. They will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your case. 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 the act or omission being complained about; or; no more than one year from the date when you should reasonably have known that there was cause for complaint.  The Legal Ombudsman has provided further guidance on its service at www.legalombudsman.org.uk.
  9. You can also complain via the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), information about this can be found on their website https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/

 

If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.