Complaints Procedure

We are committed to providing a high quality legal service to all of our clients.

When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards.

Our complaints 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.

This policy explains how we will deal with any complaint that is referred to us.  Your complaint might concern the way in which you have been dealt with, the quality of advice you have received or any invoice that you have received.

Our complaints procedure

If you have a complaint, please contact Fraser Young, Senior Partner.  You can contact him by post at  Silverwell House, Silverwell Street, Bolton BL1 1PT, or by email at fraser.young@fieldingsporter.co.uk.

To explain to you how long this process might take we have included our target times for each stage of the process.  Where, for any reason, it is not possible to observe any of these limits we will let you know and explain why.

What will happen next?

On receipt of your complaint Fraser Young will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint.  We will open a file for your complaint and record it in our central register. Fraser Young will examine the file that we have on the work that we have been doing for you.  We would look to acknowledge your complaint within 3 days of receiving it and will complete our initial examination within 14 days.

We may then invite you to a meeting or write to you to ask for further information.  Alternately we may write to you setting out our views on the situation and suggesting any redress that we would feel to be appropriate.  We will aim to write to you with our views and any suggestions within 7 days of completing our investigations.

When we feel that we have failed in our standards we could offer an apology, a reduction of any bill or a repayment in relation to any payment received.

If, at this stage, you are still not satisfied, you can write to us again.  We will then arrange to review our decision. We would generally aim to do this within 14 days of hearing from you.  We will usually do this by asking another partner in this firm to review the file that we have on your complaint and see if they agree with our response. 

We will let you know the result of the review within 7 days of the end of the review and will do so by writing to you to confirm our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

If we have to change any of the timescales above, you will be informed and we will explain the reasons why.

If you are still not satisfied you can contact the Legal Ombudsman who provides a service examining complaints against lawyers, including solicitors’ firms.  Please note that you must register any complaints about our decision with the Legal Ombudsman within 6 months of our final decision and no more than one year from the date of act/omission, or no more than one year from when you should reasonably have known that there was cause for complaint.

The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are as follows:-

Address:  Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH  

Telephone: 0300 555 0333

Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

While the Legal Ombudsman handles complaints about the services we provide as a firm, or our fees for the services so provided, the SRA deals with complaints about our conduct. Further information is available on the SRA website - SRA.org.uk/consumer/problems

Thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention.  We will do our best to address any dissatisfaction that you have experienced in using the services of this firm.  Our primary objective is to put things right.

If we have to change any of the timescales above, you will be informed and we will explain the reasons why.