Complaints 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 to improve our standards.

Our Complaints Procedure

If you have a complaint, please initially contact the fee-earner with the conduct of your case to see if it can be resolved.

If you are unable to resolve your complaint or wish to discuss how our service could have been improved, please contact Anita Garrod who is the director responsible for complaints resolution on 01245 492494 or E-mail at [email protected] or alternatively in writing at: Garrods Law, 1st Floor, Broomfield Place, 189 Main Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 7EQ.

If your complaint is about Anita Garrod, then you should contact Boyd Carter who is also a director. His contact details are the same.

What Will Happen Next?

  1. We will record your complaint in our Central Register and open a separate file for your complaint. We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint, let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint and send you a copy of this policy. You can expect to receive our letter within 5 working days of us receiving your complaint. We will try to complete our investigation into your complaint within 8 weeks of our receipt of it.
  2. During the next 14 days your complaint will be investigated and this will normally consist of internal meeting(s) and discussions with the member(s) of staff involved and a review of your file. If it is deemed necessary, you may then be invited to a meeting to discuss and, it is hoped, resolve your complaint. Should this happen, within 7 days of the meeting, we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions agreed.
  3. If a meeting is not considered to be necessary or appropriate, you will be sent a detailed written reply to your complaint within a further 7 days, including suggestions for resolving the matter. You should let us know within 7 days if you agree to our suggestions.
  4. If at this stage you are not satisfied, you should within those 7 days, contact us again to explain why you remain unhappy with our response and we will review your comments. Depending on the matter we may at this stage arrange for another person to review the decision. This will happen in one of the following ways:
    • Another complaint handler at the firm will review the decision.
    • We will ask our local Law Society or another local firm of Solicitors to review your complaint.
    • We will invite you to agree to independent mediation. In this event, we will subsequently let you know how long this process will take.
  5. Within 14 days after our receipt of your comments, a letter or email will be sent to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons in response to your request for a review.
  6. If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.

If we are unable to resolve your complaint you can have your complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates problems about poor service from lawyers. You can contact the Legal Ombudsman at PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ or www.legalombudsman.org.uk or call 0300 555 0333.

Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. We have 8 weeks to try to resolve your complaint. 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, in either event,
  • Within six months of receiving our final response to your complaint.

The Legal Ombudsman has provided further guidance on its service at www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Solicitors Regulation Authority

If someone thinks a solicitor might be dishonest or you have concerns about their ethics or integrity, they 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:

https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page#report

We are required to advise you that alternative complaints bodies exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services, such as https://www.promediate.co.uk. However, save as set out above, we have chosen not to adopt an alternative dispute resolution process. If, therefore, you wish to complain further, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman or the SRA as set out above, depending upon the nature of your complaint.