You should raise with the person dealing with your matter straight away any concerns you have about our service, the work we are doing for you or our charges.

Our Complaints Procedure

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.

If you have a complaint please contact us with the details in writing. We define a complaint as any expression of dissatisfaction resulting in a formal complaint, whether oral or written and whether justified or not, from or on behalf of an eligible complainant about the firm’s provision of, or failure to provide, a legal service we have offered.

Normally we shall not consider a complaint if it is made out of time, that is, if it is made more than six years after the cause for the complaint arose or three years after you should have reasonably known that there was cause for complaint, whichever is the later.

Who you should complain to

You should first contact the Supervising Partner of the person you are complaining about in accordance with the Client Care Letter which we sent to you at the start of your matter.

If you wish to pursue your complaint further or if your complaint is against a Supervising Partner, you may contact our Client Care Partner, Juliet Schalker. You can write with full details of your complaint to Ms Schalker at Ivy House, 107 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Hertfordshire AL1 3EW or email her at js@debenhamsottaway.co.uk. As Client Care Partner, Ms Schalker has overall responsibility for the complaints procedure at Debenhams Ottaway.

What will happen next?

  1. After you contact the Supervising Partner, s/he will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within 3 working days of receiving it, enclosing a copy of this procedure.
  2. We shall then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the Supervising Partner reviewing your matter file and discussing your complaint with the person who acted for you.
  3. The Supervising Partner will then send you a detailed written response to your complaint, including his/her suggestions for resolving the matter, within 10 working days of sending you the acknowledgment letter.
  4. Alternatively, the Supervising Partner may decide to invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint and this invitation will occur within 10 working days of sending you the acknowledgment letter. Within 5 working days of any meeting, the Supervising Partner will write to you to confirm what took place and any solution he/she has agreed with you.
  5. If you wish to pursue your complaint further or if your complaint is against a Supervising Partner, you should contact Ms Schalker in writing with details of your complaint. She will investigate and provide her written response within 10 working days.
  6. If we have to change any of the timescales above for dealing with your complaint, we shall let you know and explain why.
  7. We have 8 weeks to consider your complaint and provide you with a final response. If we have not done this or if you are not satisfied with the outcome of the investigation of your complaint,
  8. 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.
  9. You can contact the Legal Ombudsman at PO Box 6806 Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ or by telephone on 0300 555 0333 or by e-mail at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk.

Code of Conduct

The Solicitors Regulation Code of Conduct can be found on their website.