Designated Complaints Handler

If you have any concerns about our service, our work, or our charges, you should discuss these first with the individual who has day-to-day control of your matter or Matthew Dixon.  They will try to resolve all the issues to your satisfaction on an informal basis.

If you are still dissatisfied and you wish to make a complaint, please contact in writing our Designated Complaints Handler, Matthew Dixon, who is a Solicitor and Member of the LLP.

You can write to him at MD Law, Broom Hall, 8-10 Broomhall Road, Sheffield, S10 2DR or send an email to m.dixon@mdlaw.co.uk.

Once your complaint is received in writing our Formal Complaints Handling Procedure will be followed.

Step One: Acknowledging your Complaint

Within two working days of receiving your complaint, your complaint will be recorded in our Complaints Register and a separate file will be opened in which we will store any correspondence and other documents relating to your complaint.  Within five working days we will also send you a letter acknowledging your complaint.

Step Two: Investigating your Complaint

Within ten working days of our acknowledgement, we will review your file(s) and any other relevant documentation and send you a letter telling you how we propose to deal with your complaint. Examples of what we might say in this letter are as follows:-

• If your complaint is straight forward we might make suggestions as to how we can put things right or we may offer you some form of redress;
• If your complaint is more complicated we might ask you to confirm, explain or clarify any issues;
• We may ask to meet with you to discuss things face-to-face. If you would prefer not to meet, or if we cannot arrange this within an agreeable timescale, we will write to you fully setting out our views on the situation and making suggestions as to how we can put things right, or asking you to confirm, explain or clarify any issues;
• If we require more time to deal with your complaint, we will inform you of this and when we expect to be able to respond to you.

Whichever form our investigation takes, we will aim to give you our final decision within six weeks of receiving your complaint (or sooner if possible).

Step Three: Appealing against our Final Decision

If you are not satisfied with our final decision, you may ask for the decision to be reviewed within 20 working days of receiving our detailed response.  In this case, Matthew Dixon will, in his discretion, either personally review the decision, refer it to another appropriately qualified member of staff to consider or an external advisor in exceptional circumstances.  We will seek to let you know the outcome of this review within five working days.

Step Four: The Legal Ombudsman

If we are unable to resolve your complaint, then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about service issues with lawyers.

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.

Ordinarily, you cannot use the Legal Ombudsman unless you have first attempted to resolve your complaint using our internal Complaints Handling procedure, but you will be able to contact the Legal Ombudsman if:-

• The complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within eight weeks of first making the compliant to us; or
• The Legal Ombudsman decides that there are exceptional reasons why the Legal Ombudsman should consider your complaint sooner, or without you having to use our internal Complaints Handling Procedure first; or
• The Legal Ombudsman considers that your complaint cannot be resolved using our internal Complaints Handling Procedure because the relationship between you and us has broken down irretrievably.

If you wish to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, you must be one of the following:-

• An individual;
• A micro-enterprise as defined in European Recommendation 2003/361/EC of 6 May 2003 (broadly, an enterprise with fewer than 10 staff and a turnover or balance sheet value not exceeding €2 million);
• A charity with an annual income less than £1 million;
• A club, association or society with an annual income less than £1 million;
• A trustee of a trust with a net asset value less than £1 million; or
• A personal representative or the residuary beneficiaries of an estate where a person with a complaint died before referring it to the Legal Ombudsman.

If you are not, you should be aware that you can only obtain redress by using our Complaints Handling Procedure or by mediation or arbitration, or by taking action through the Courts.

Legal Ombudsman Contact Details:

Address:              PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ

Telephone:         0300 555 0333

Email:                    enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Website:              www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Complaining to the Solicitors Regulation Authority

 The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about our 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.

Address:              Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN

Telephone:         0370 606 2555

Email:                    report@sra.org.uk

Website:              www.sra.org.uk

Alternative Dispute Resolution

 Where we are not able to settle your complaint using our internal complaints process, there are alternative complaints bodies (such as the Ombudsman Services www.ombudsman-services.org) which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme.

Please let us know if you would like to consider using an alternative complaints body to resolve your complaint.

Policy reviewed: 1 April 2023