Regulation
Smith Sutcliffe is Authorised and Regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority No 55532.
Contact details for the SRA, including access to the Standards and Regulations can be found via the SRA website,
If you consider that any aspect of our dealings with your case may be in breach of these standards you can contact the SRA here
Insurance
We maintain first tier Professional Indemnity Insurance up to a limit of £2,000,000 as required by the Solictors Regulation Authority.
The Insurer is Portland Pii
The Policy Number is UKSOL 2300555
In certain circumstances the cover available to clients may be increased to £10,000,000. Please contact us to discuss insurance arrangements relating to specific work that we are undertaking for you.
Equality and Diversity
We have a comprehensive Equality and Diversity Policy in line with the requirements of our Regulator.
We are required to complete a biennial survey of our staff . The results of the 2023 survey were such that over a small sample it may be possible to identify individual members of staff. We have therefore opted not to publish the data on this occasion. This will be reviewed in 2025
Service Concerns
We want to give you the best possible service. However, if at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service we have provided to you then you should inform us immediately so that we can do our best to resolve the problem for you. In the first instance it may be helpful to contact the individual who is working on your case to discuss any concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues at this stage.. If you would like to make a formal complaint then you can access our full complaints procedure here..
What happens if I don’t agree with your views on the complaint?
If we are unable to resolve the complaint with you then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates problems about poor service from lawyers.
Before accepting a complaint for investigation the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:
No more than one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about; or
No more than one year from the date when you should have realised that there was cause for complaint;
and
Within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint.
If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman please contact them:
Contact details:
Visit www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Call 0300 555 0333 between 10am to 4pm.
Relay UK: 18001 0300 555 0333
Email enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH
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.
Our complaints procedure
If you have a complaint, contact us with the details. We prefer this to be in writing. If you send us an email please ensure that you receive an acknowledgement of the message.
What will happen next
We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and may ask you to confirm or explain the details set out. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint. You can expect to receive our letter within 5 working days of us receiving your complaint.
We will record your complaint in our central register and open a separate file for your complaint. We will do this immediately on receiving your complaint.
We will then start to investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the following steps.
- The Client Care Partner, Mr Paul Halstead, will be responsible for reviewing the matter.
- He will ask the member of staff who acted for you to review your complaint within 5 working days.
- He will then examine the reply and the information in your complaint file. And, if necessary, he may also speak to the staff member. This will take up to 3 days from receiving the reply and the file.
He will either (a) send you a detailed reply to your complaint including any suggestions he might have to resolve the matter or (b) invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint.
If you agree to a meeting he will within 2 days write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions he has agreed with you.
If you do not want a meeting he will send a detailed reply as mentioned above.
At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you should contact us again preferably in writing. We will then arrange for another partner of the firm to review Mr Halstead’s decision within 10 days from your further contact.
We will let you know the result of the review within 5 days of the end of the review. At this time we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons. We are required to have completed this process within 8 weeks from the initial complaint.
If you are still not satisfied, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman Service who will review the steps that we have taken and look at ways to resolve the matter. The Legal Ombudsman is an independent complaints body established under the Legal Services Act, who can investigate complaints about the legal service you have received from us.
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.
The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are:
Visit www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Call 0300 555 0333 between 10am to 4pm.
NGT Lite:
18001 0300 555 0333
Email enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6167 Slough SL1 0EH
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The Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6806
Wolverhampton
WV1 9WJ
Tel 0300 555 0333
www.legalombudsman.org.uk for further details.
VAT
Smith Sutcliffe is registerd for VAT. Our registration number is 174305475
