Complaint Handling – Our Policy

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 improve our standards. Our overriding objective is to address your dissatisfaction; our Complaint Handling Partner is Brian Hegarty.

You can contact him by writing to him at 56 Westgate Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 5XU or by email at brian.hegarty@davidgray.co.uk or by telephone on 0191 232 9547.

What happens next?

1. We will write to you acknowledging your complaint within 3 days of receiving it. We will send you a copy of our Complaint Handling Procedure.
2. We will investigate your complaint. This will normally involve Brian Hegarty reviewing your file and speaking to the fee earner who acted for you.
3. We will record your complaint in our Central Register and open a file for your complaint. We will do this within 2 working days of receiving your complaint.
4. Brian Hegarty will invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. He will do this within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgment letter.
5. Within 3 days of meeting Brian Hegarty, he will write to you to confirm what took place and to outline any solutions he has agreed with you.
6. If you do not want a meeting or a meeting is not possible, Brian Hegarty will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including his suggestions for resolving the complaint. This will happen within 21 days of sending you the acknowledgment letter.
7. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you can contact us again. We will arrange for another Partner to review the steps taken by Brian Hegarty in dealing with your complaint.
8. We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

If we have to change any of the timescales above we will let you know and explain why.

Legal Ombudsman

We are permitted a period of eight weeks to consider the complaint. 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.

For further information, The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are: –

Telephone: 0300 555 0333 Minicom: 0300 555 1777

Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk 

Post: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH

Email:  enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk.

Solicitors Regulation Authority

If you think a solicitor might be dishonest or you have concerns about their ethics or integrity, you also have the right to notify our regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). There are no time limits for making a report but there are limits on what the SRA will consider. Please note that the SRA is not able to deal with issues of poor service (complaints of this nature should instead be referred to the Legal Ombudsman). For further information about the SRA’s role, please contact the SRA or visit their website.

If you require Client Care Policies please contact Practice Manager Debora Sanderson.