Complaints Procedure

Fort Solicitors are committed to providing the highest standards of legal professional service to all our clients. We recognise you are entitled to expect and receive an efficient service from us, if at any time you become dissatisfied with the service we have provided please inform us immediately so we may attempt to resolve your concerns as quickly and fully as possible. We have put in place the following complaints procedure so that any issues you may have can be dealt with promptly.

Procedure

In the first instance, you may wish to contact the individual who is dealing with your case to discuss your concerns as they may be able to resolve them without proceeding to a formal complaint.

If your complaint cannot be resolved with the individual concerned and you want to raise a formal complaint, please follow the formal complaint procedure.

Formal Complaint Procedure

We will then start to investigate your complaint:

1. An acknowledgement of your complaint will be sent to you in writing within 1-2 days.

2. We will review your file and speak with the individual dealing with your case. Once we have investigated your complaint, we will provide you with a written response together with any proposals to resolve the issues you have raised.

3. You may wish to attend a meeting with us to discuss your complaint. If so, within 7 days of that meeting we will write or email you to confirm the discussions which took place together with any solutions agreed.

4. We will endeavour to consider your complaint as quickly as possible however it may take up to 6 – 8 weeks from receipt of your complaint for us to carry out our investigations and respond to you in writing to you. If there are any changes to these time scales, we will notify you in advance. In the meantime, your on-going case with us will not be affected by the investigation unless a conflict of interest arises.

What to do if you are still not satisfied

If you remain unsatisfied as to the resolution of your complaint you may contact the Legal Ombudsman who will look at your complaint independently however, before accepting your case the Legal Ombudsman will usually expect you to have endeavoured to resolve your complaint through our complaint procedure, before a referral is made.

The details to contact the Legal Ombudsman are:

The Legal Ombudsman
P.O. Box 6167
Slough
SL1 OEH
Telephone 0300 555 0333
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Time limits apply to this service. If you do wish to refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman you should not delay once our own complaints process has concluded. In some circumstances the Legal Ombudsman may consider a complaint out of time, but the general rule is that you must make your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within:

a. Six months of receiving from us our final response to your complaint and

b. No more than one year from the date of act or omission being complained about or

c. No more than one year from the date when you should reasonably have known that there was cause for complaint.

Whilst the Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints concerning the quality of the legal service you have been provided with, if you have a more serious concern relating to the professional misconduct of a solicitor from this firm or the firm itself, it is the Solicitors Regulation Authority who deals with such matters.

They can be contacted at: