Complaints Procedure - Mitchells Solicitors

Mitchells Complaints Procedure

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.

Our Complaints Procedure

If you have a complaint about the service we have provided or our charges you should discuss this first with the legal adviser who has been dealing with your matter. If your complaint is about our charges you have the right to apply for assessment of our bill under Part 3 of the Solicitors Act 1974.

What will happen next?

We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain the details set out. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint. You can expect to receive our letter within 10 days of us receiving your complaint.
We will record your complaint in our central register and open a separate file for your complaint. We will do this within 2 days of receiving your complaint.
We will then start to investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the following steps
- We will pass your complaint to the designated complaints handler within 3 days.
- He will ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint within 14 days.
- He will then examine their reply and the information in your complaint file. And, if necessary, he may also speak to them, this will take up to three days from receiving their reply and the file. If your complaint is straight forward we might suggest how we can put things right or offer some kind of redress.
The designated complaints handler will then invite you to a meeting and discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. He will do this within 10 days. If you prefer not to meet we will write to you as set out in point 5 below.
Within 2 days of the meeting the designated complaints handler will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions he has agreed with you.
If you inform us that you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, the designated complaints handler will send you a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include his suggestions for resolving the matter. He will do this within five days of completing the investigation or of you so informing us, whichever is the later.
At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you can contact us again. We will then arrange to review our decision. This will happen in one of the following ways.
- Another solicitor of the firm will review the designated complaints handler’s decision within 10 days.
- We will ask our local Law Society or another local firm of solicitors to review your complaint within five days, we will let you know how long this process will take.
- We will invite you to agree to independent mediation within five days. We will let you know how long this process will take.
We will let you know the result of the review within five days of the end of the review. At this time we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

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

All firms of solicitors are obliged to attempt to resolve problems that clients may have with the service provided. It is therefore important that you immediately raise your concerns with us. We value you and hope that you will have no reason to be unhappy with us.

Referral to the Legal Ombudsman

A complaint may be made to the Legal Ombudsman where the problem or when you found out about it happened after 5 October 2010 and you are referring your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within 6 years of the problem happening or three years from when you found out about it and your referring your complaint within 6 months of our final response.

In these circumstances if you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. The Legal Ombudsman can be contacted by telephone: 0300 555 0333; email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org or post: PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ.

Complaints to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour in relation to matters, such as dishonesty, treating your unfairly because of your age or disability. If you wish to raise concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority please contact them by telephone: 0370 606 2555; post: The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham B1 1RN