We are committed to providing a high quality legal service to all our clients.

We are also committed to having good professional working relationships with Counsel, other solicitors, the LAA and third parties.

We comply with our Equality and Diversity Policy regarding the provision of services and the instruction of Third Parties.

We welcome feedback from our client’s which will enable us to continually improve the service that we provide. We will generally ask you for feedback when your matter concludes.

When something goes wrong we need you to tell us about it.  This will help us to improve our standards.

Our complaints procedure

If at any point you become unhappy with the service we provide please inform us immediately so that we can do our best to resolve the problem for you.

The person to contact is
Francesca Lambert-Amaning

fla@hlafamilylaw.co.uk

Victory House 

400 Pavilion Drive 
Northampton
NN4 7PA
01604 969168

 

 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.  You can expect to receive our letter within four working days of the receipt of your complaint.  We will enclose a copy of this procedure.

Your complaint will be recorded in our central register and a file will be attached to your case file. 

We will then start to investigate your complaint.  This may involve one or more of the following steps:

• asking the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint;
• Examining their reply and the information in your complaint file. They may then be asked for more information.

We may invite you to a meeting in person or virtually to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint and it is at your discretion as to whether you wish to look to resolve your complaint in this manner.  

Following any meeting we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions agreed with you.

If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible Francesca will send you a detailed reply to your complaint.  This will include our suggestions for resolving the matter.  We will aim to do so within fifteen working days of sending you the acknowledgement letter. However, depending on the nature of your complaint and the steps necessary to investigate your complaint this may take longer. We will aim to keep you up-dated as to the progress of your complaint.

At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you can contact us again. 

We will write to you within 8 working days of receiving your request for a review confirming the final position on your complaint and explaining the reasons.

If the timescales for any of the above need to be changed we will let you know and explain why.

If we are unable to resolve your complaint using our internal complaints process you can have your complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about service issues with lawyers.

Legal Ombudsman at PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ

Tel: 0300 555 0333 or 0121 245 3050
Email:  to consider the complaint.

There are time limits within which complaints must be made to the Legal Ombudsman, as indicated below.

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 position to you.

Alternative complaints bodies such as ProMediate exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use the scheme.

We do not agree to use ProMediate.

If the complaint is about Francesca Lambert-Amaning then all of the same procedures above apply save that Ben Harling will deal with the matter.  He can be contacted at the details above and at bh@hlafamilylaw.co.uk

If you are concerned about our professional behaviour, for example you believe that we have been dishonest, to have discriminated against you or not complied with our professional obligations under the Solicitors Regulation Rules or Regulations then you may be able to complain to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. For more information you can go to www.sra.org.uk or on 0370 606 2555