Raising a concern

Our commitment

At Ewings & Co we aim to provide the best possible service to our clients and, in order to do this, we need to know from you if you feel dissatisfied. Should you have any occasion to feel unhappy about our service, or about the bill, in the first instance it may be helpful to contact the person who is working on your case to discuss your concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues at this stage. Should you wish to make a complaint, our Client Care Partner, Paul Ewings is the person who deals with these matters and will be prepared to meet with you, if necessary, to discuss your complaint. We have a procedure in place which details how we handle complaints which is available upon request and also online at www.ewings.uk.com.

What will happen next?

We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within 5 working days of receiving it.
We will investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing your complaint to our Paul Ewings, who will review your matter file and speak to the member of staff who acted for you.
We may then, if necessary, invite you to a meeting to discuss and, hopefully resolve, your complaint. We will do this within 14 working days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
Within 10 working days of that meeting we will write to you to confirm what took place and to set out any solutions that have been agreed with you.
If you do not want a meeting, or it is not possible, you will be sent a detailed written reply to your complaint, including the suggestions for resolving the matter, within 21 working days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for another Partner within the firm to review the decision.
We will write to you within 10 working days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
If we have to change any of the above timescales, we will let you know and explain why.

The Legal Ombudsman

We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time, or if you are not happy with our handling of your complaint, then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman who is responsible for investigating complaints about service issues with law firms. We would hope that this does not become necessary and that we can resolve matters between ourselves. Contact details are as follows:

PO Box 6167
Slough
SL1 0EH

' 0300 555 0333
* enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
ü www.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.

Complaints in relation to bills

You also have a right to complain about or challenge your bill by applying for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. The Legal Ombudsman may not consider a complaint about a bill, if you have applied to the court for assessment of that bill.

Raising concerns with our regulator

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) can help you if you are concerned about a solicitor’s behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. Further information is available at: www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.