Complaints Policy

Intro­duc­tion

We are com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing a high-qual­i­ty legal ser­vice to our clients. When some­thing goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to sort out any mis­takes or mis­un­der­stand­ings, and to improve our standards.

Ini­tial concerns

In most cas­es, an infor­mal chat with the lawyer respon­si­ble for your mat­ter will resolve your concerns. 

If it does not, you can for­malise your com­plaint or speak to some­one oth­er than the lawyer respon­si­ble for your mat­ter. Our Com­plaints Man­ag­er, Rick Bar­row can record every­thing you are unhap­py about and rec­om­mend the best solu­tion for you. You can con­tact Rick Bar­row at rick.​barrow@​jbgass.​com and in his absence, the COLP, Luke Hewitt at luke.​hewitt@​jbgass.​com.

What we need to know

To deal with your com­plaint cor­rect­ly, it would be help­ful when con­tact­ing us if you could pro­vide the fol­low­ing information: 

• Your name, con­tact details and pre­ferred con­tact method 
• File ref­er­ence number 
• Details of your concerns 
• How you would like us to put things right.

What will hap­pen next?

1. If you tele­phone us, we will endeav­our to resolve the issue in that call. 
2. If you email or write to us, or if your com­plaint can­not be resolved in a phone call, we will acknowl­edge receipt of your com­plaint in writ­ing with­in two days of receiv­ing it. 
3. We will then inves­ti­gate your com­plaint. This will nor­mal­ly involve the Depart­ment Head review­ing your file and speak­ing to the mem­ber of staff who act­ed for you. 
4. With­in four­teen days of send­ing you the acknowl­edge­ment let­ter our Com­plaints Man­ag­er or the Depart­ment Head (if they can resolve the issue) will con­tact you to dis­cuss and resolve your com­plaint. This will pri­mar­i­ly be done by e‑mail but can be done by tele­phone or in per­son if you would rather. 
5. With­in three days of the dis­cus­sion we have, our Com­plaints Man­ag­er or Depart­ment Head will write to you to con­firm what took place and any solu­tions we have agreed with you. 
6. In any case they will send you a detailed writ­ten reply to your com­plaint, includ­ing their sug­ges­tions for resolv­ing the mat­ter, with­in twen­ty-one days of send­ing you the writ­ten acknowl­edge­ment of your com­plaint referred to in para­graph 1 above. 
7. At this stage, if you are still not sat­is­fied, you should con­tact us again and we will arrange for anoth­er Direc­tor to review the decision. 
8. We will write to you with­in four­teen days of receiv­ing your request for a review, con­firm­ing our final posi­tion on your com­plaint and explain­ing our reasons. 
9. If we have to change any of these timescales, we will let you know and explain why.
10. This con­cludes our com­plaints pro­ce­dure. If you remain dis­sat­is­fied, you are enti­tled to refer the mat­ter to the Legal Ombuds­man. The Legal Ombuds­man expects com­plaints to be made to them with­in a year of the date of the act or omis­sion about which you are con­cerned or with­in a year of you real­is­ing there was a con­cern. You must also refer your con­cerns to the Legal Ombuds­man with­in six months of the firm’s final response to you.
11. The Legal Ombudsman’s con­tact details are as follows:
    1. Tele­phone: 0300 555 0333 
    2. Web­site: www​.lega​lom​buds​man​.org​.uk
    3. Post: Legal Ombuds­man, PO Box 6806, Wolver­hamp­ton, WV1 9WJ

12. Most of the time, com­plaints about solic­i­tors are about poor ser­vice, and there­fore should be sent to the Legal Ombuds­man. If the Legal Ombuds­man thinks your case involves a breach of our Prin­ci­ples, they will refer your case to the Solic­i­tors Reg­u­la­tion Author­i­ty. Like­wise, if you report a solic­i­tor to us for poor ser­vice, we will refer you to the Legal Ombuds­man. How­ev­er, you should report the mat­ter direct­ly to Solic­i­tors Reg­u­la­tion Author­i­ty if you think a firm or any­one reg­u­lat­ed has breached an SRA Prin­ci­ple – www​.sra​.org​.uk