Complaints

STAPLETONS SOLICITORS Complaints Procedure

Our Complaints Policy

Stapletons (“the Firm”) aims to provide a service of high quality to our clients.  When something goes wrong we need you to tell us about it.  We are always looking to improve our services and standards.

If you have any concerns about the way that your matter is being handled, please contact the Solicitor with whom you normally deal with to let them know. They will try to address your concerns and if necessary seek guidance from a senior member of their department.

Our Complaints Procedure

If you are still dissatisfied, then please contact Mr G. Stapleton, the Director responsible for complaints resolution.

What will happen next?

  1. We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and ask you to confirm or explain any part of your complaint that is unclear to us. We will also give you details of the name of the person who will be dealing directly with your complaint in the first instance. You can expect to receive a letter within 7 days of us receiving your complaint.
  1. We will record your complaint and open a file for your complaint. We will do this within 7 days of receiving your complaint.
  1. We will then start to investigate your complaint and will aim to resolve it within a further 10 working days. This may involve one or more of the following steps:
  • We may ask the fee earner who acted for you to reply to your complaint.
  • We may review the work done/not done in relation to the case in question and discuss your complaint with staff.
  • We may either invite you to meet with the Partner responsible for complaints resolution, the person investigating the complaint or the fee earner who acted for you to discuss your complaint.
  1. Within 7 days of completing the investigation we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions that have been agreed with you and/or the outcome of the investigations. We will also include our suggestions for resolving the matter. If the matter needs further investigation we will write to you and agree a further timescale.
  1. At this stage, if you are still dissatisfied, you can write to us again. We will then arrange for a review of our decision by another Partner within 10 working days.
  1. If we change any of the timescales above, we will let you know in advance and explain in detail the reasons why.
  1. If your complaint concerns costs, you are entitled to complain about your bill and you may also have a right to object to the bill by complaining to the Legal Ombudsman and/or applying to the court for an assessment under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. If the bill remains unpaid the firm may be able to charge interest.
  1. Please note that if we have issued a bill for work done on the matter, and all or some of the bill is not paid, we may be entitled to charge interest on the amount outstanding.
  1. If, having exhausted our own internal complaints handling procedure you are still not satisfied with our final response to your complaint, you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman, who investigates complaints about service issues with lawyers.
  1. 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 6 months of our final response to you.
  1. The Legal Ombudsman can be contacted by: post, Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH or by phone: 0300 555 0333
  1. You may also contact the Solicitors Regulation Authority ( “SRA”) if you have any concerns about a solicitor, or the firm. See their website to see have you can raise the concerns with them.