We hope you will not find any reason to complain about the level of service you receive, as the client experience of engaging with Ella Millett Legal Solicitors is of the utmost importance to us. However, if you ever have cause for complaint, please read and follow this Complaints Handling Procedure, which tells you how we will deal with your complaint and how long it is likely to take. It also explains what you can do if you are not happy with how we deal with your complaint, or with our final decision.
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.
If this person cannot satisfactorily address your concerns and you wish to make a complaint, please contact our Designated Complaints Handler, Ella Millett. You can write to her at 164 (A) Bramcote Lane, Wollaton, Nottingham, NG8 2QP, or send an email to ella@ellamillettlegal.co.uk.
Step One: Acknowledging Your Complaint
Within two working days of receiving your complaint, it will be recorded in our Complaints Register and a separate file opened to store any correspondence and documents relating to it. Within two working days we will also send you a letter acknowledging your complaint.
Step Two: Investigating Your Complaint
Within five working days of receiving your complaint, we will review your file and any other relevant documentation and write to you setting out how we propose to deal with it. For example, we might:
- Make suggestions as to how we can put things right, or offer some form of redress, if your complaint is straightforward;
- Ask you to confirm, explain or clarify any issues, if your complaint is more complicated; or
- Ask to meet with you to discuss things face-to-face — we aim to do this within fourteen working days of first receiving your complaint. If you’d prefer not to meet, or we can’t arrange this within an agreeable timescale, we will write to you fully setting out our views and suggestions instead.
Whichever form our investigation takes, we aim to give you our final decision within six weeks of receiving your complaint, or sooner if possible.
Step Three: Appealing Our Final Decision
If you are not satisfied with our final decision, please let us know and we will review it again. We will let you know the result of any appeal within five working days of receiving it.
Step Four: The Legal Ombudsman
If you are still not satisfied, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman about your complaint, provided you do so within six months of the end of our internal Complaints Handling Procedure. Time limits also apply from the date you first became aware, or should have become aware, of the problem — these are set out in the Legal Ombudsman’s Scheme Rules, available from the Legal Ombudsman using the details below.
Ordinarily you cannot use the Legal Ombudsman unless you have first attempted to resolve your complaint through our internal procedure, but you may be able to contact them sooner if:
- Your complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within eight weeks of first making it to us;
- The Legal Ombudsman decides there are exceptional reasons to consider your complaint sooner, or without our internal procedure first; or
- The Legal Ombudsman considers your complaint cannot be resolved internally because the relationship between you and us has broken down irretrievably.
To make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, you must be one of the following: an individual; a micro-enterprise (broadly, fewer than 10 staff and turnover or balance sheet under €2 million); a charity with annual income under £1 million; a club, association or society with annual income under £1 million; a trustee of a trust with net asset value under £1 million; or a personal representative or residuary beneficiary of an estate where the person with the complaint died before referring it to the Legal Ombudsman. If you are not, you can still seek redress through our Complaints Handling Procedure, mediation, arbitration, or 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 if you are concerned about our behaviour — for example, dishonesty, taking or losing your money, or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.
SRA contact details
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 through our internal process, there are alternative complaints bodies — such as Ombudsman Services (www.ombudsman-services.org) — 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 this option.