Initial Complaints
If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you have received, or about the bill, please contact the Supervisor with overall responsibility for your case by email. If you are unable to email us then you can write to us at Halliday Reeves Solicitors. The relevant Supervisor is named in the client care letter sent at the start of your case.
You may also raise your complaint directly with our Complaints Manager using the contact details below:
Complaints Manager: Victoria Guyatt, Managing Partner
Email: management@hallidayreeves.com
Postal Address: Halliday Reeves Solicitors, Boho Zero, 21 Gosford Street, Middlesbrough, TS2 1BB.
We will acknowledge your complaint promptly and handle it in line with our internal complaints procedure.
Our Supervisors will always try and resolve any correspondence received informally at first.
If they are unable to do so, they will pass the matter on to our Office Manager, who will again try to resolve the matter informally with you.
If this remains not possible, or if at any point you request that the matter be dealt with formally, our formal complaints procedure below will commence.
Formal Complaints – What Will Happen Next?
- On receipt of your request advising that you wish to formally complain, we will send you an email acknowledging receipt and enclosing a copy of this procedure and our complaints questionnaire for completion. Your complaint will normally be passed to our Complaints Manager, Victoria Guyatt, who has overall responsibility for the investigation. If your complaint relates to Victoria Guyatt, it will be investigated by Mark Reeves.
- We will begin our investigation upon receipt of your completed questionnaire. We will acknowledge receipt within 5 working days. We may ask you to provide more information if needed.
- The Complaints Manager will ask the member of our team who acted for you to respond to the complaint, where practical, within 5 working days of our acknowledgment of your questionnaire.
- The Complaints Manager will then examine their reply and review the information in the complaint file. If necessary, they may speak to the team member concerned. They may return to you with further questions if helpful to the investigation. This stage will take up to 15 working days from receiving their reply, and therefore up to 25 working days from receiving your completed questionnaire.
- We will then send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including our findings and any proposals for resolving the matter. We will do this within 5 working days of completing the investigation.
- If you remain dissatisfied, you can ask us to review our decision. We will arrange for another Solicitor member of our Management Team to review the matter. You will receive the outcome of this review within 10 working days of your request.
- If we have not heard from you within 15 working days of sending a questionnaire, a request for further information, a detailed reply or a review outcome, we will consider the complaint resolved and close the file.
Complaining to the Legal Ombudsman
If you are still not satisfied after our internal process, you may be able to contact the Legal Ombudsman, who can independently investigate complaints about service.
You must normally bring your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within:
- Six months of receiving our final written response to your complaint;
and - No more than one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about
or - No more than one year from when you should reasonably have become aware of the problem.
Full details are available at: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Complaints in Relation to Bills
You may also complain about a bill under our complaints procedure. In addition, you may have the right to apply to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. Please note that if all or part of a bill remains unpaid, we may be entitled to charge interest.
The Legal Ombudsman may not consider a complaint about a bill if you have applied to the court for assessment of that bill.
Reporting Concerns to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
You can report concerns to the Solicitors Regulation Authority if you think a solicitor or regulated firm has breached SRA rules, including issues relating to conduct, integrity, confidentiality, or ethics.
There are no strict time limits for reporting concerns to the SRA, but you should raise them as soon as reasonably possible.
You can contact the SRA at:
https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor/
