Complaints Handling Policy
We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients.
If something goes wrong, please tell us about it.
We want to hear from you so that we can work to continuously improve our standards of service.
How to complain to us?
Please email [email protected]. Please be as specific as you can about your concern and if you have specific reference details that may help us understand and consider your complaint (e.g. a reference number, dates or the name of who you have been dealing with at Pogust Goodhead) please include these in your email.
If you are unable to share the details of your complaint by email, require further assistance or would like to speak with somebody regarding your complaint, you can leave a us message on 0330 155 900 and one of our dedicated complaints team will get back to you within 48 hours. If you are leaving a message for us, please make sure you provide your name, your reference number, a contact telephone number, and some brief information regarding the matter that you wish to complain about.
We may keep records of our communications with you – you can read more about how we handle and retain your information in accordance with our privacy policy, here.
What happens next?
Once you have told us you need us to make reasonable adjustments we will
1
Acknowledgement: We aim to send you a written acknowledgement of receipt and allocation of your complaint for internal review within 2 working days.
2
Investigation: Your complaint will be passed to our Head of Quality and Client Policy or a member of their team who has not been involved in the matter about which you are complaining. They will then review your file, speak to member(s) of staff who worked on your case and aim to contact you within 21 days to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint.
3
Final response. We aim to provide a final response to you within 8 weeks of your complaint.
We do our very best to meet these timescales. However, if your complaint is complicated and we think we need more time to investigate it, or if there are other reasons why we don’t think we can keep to these timescales, we will do our best to let you know in good time and update you on when we think we will be able to get back to you.
What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint:
If we have not resolved your complaint to your satisfaction within 8 weeks, you can refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, who investigate complaints about service issues with law firms, and they will look at your complaint independently.
In order for the Legal Ombudsman to review your complaint, you must have tried to resolve your complaint with us first and allowed us a period of 8 weeks to resolve your complaint and referred your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:
For complaints made before 1 April 2023
- within six months of receiving any final response issued by us; and
- no more than six years from the date of the act or omission that you are complaining about; or no more than three years from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
For complaints made from 1 April 2023 onwards:
- within six months of receiving any final response issued by us; and
- no more than one year from the date of the act or omission that you are complaining about; or no more than one year from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
What to do if you are unhappy with our behaviour:
The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help 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.
You can contact the SRA by:
- Telephone – 0370 606 2555
- Email – [email protected]
- Post – SRA Report, The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN).
More information including on how and when to raise a concern with the SRA is on their website, here.
