Our Complaints Policy

We aim to provide you with a high-quality legal service. However, if you are concerned about that service or something goes wrong we need you to tell us about it so that we can do our best to put things right and improve our service standards.

Our complaints procedure

If you have a complaint, please set it out in writing to Mr John Wroblewski, our Complaints Director. You can write to him at Cook & Talbot Limited, Ground Floor, The Old Courthouse, 2A Albert Road, Southport PR9 0LE or by email to john.wroblewski@cookandtalbot.co.uk. Please provide as much information as possible including your full name and contact details and an explanation about the basis of your complaint. If you have a file reference number please ensure that this is also provided.

What will happen next?

1 Following receipt of your complaint the following timetable will ordinarily be applied. If, for any reason, we are unable to comply with that timetable, we will let you know. We always aim to deal with any complaints as quickly as possible

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 five working days (i.e. excluding Bank Holidays and weekends) of us receiving your complaint.

2 We will record your complaint in our central register and open a separate file for your complaint. We will do this within one working day of receiving your complaint.

3 We will acknowledge your reply to our acknowledgment letter and confirm what will happen next. You can expect to hear from us within five working days of your reply.

4 We will then start to investigate your complaint. This will normally involve the following steps:

• we will pass your complaint to John Wroblewski, our Complaints Handler, within three working days unless he is the fee earner in which case the matter will be referred to Mark Lloyd
• he will ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint within seven working days;
• he will then examine the reply and the information in your complaint file. If necessary, he may also speak to them. This will take up to seven working days from receiving the reply and the file.

5 John Wroblewski will then invite you to meet him and discuss and, we hope, resolve your complaint. He will do this within seven working days.

6 Within two working days of the meeting John Wroblewski will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions he has agreed with you. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, John Wroblewski will send you a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include his suggestions for resolving the matter. He will do this within five working days of completing his investigation.

7 At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you can write to us again. We will then arrange to review our decision. This will happen in one of the following ways:

1. We will pass your complaint to John Wroblewski, our client care partner, within three working days.
2. He will ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint within seven working days.
3. He will then examine the reply and the information in your complaint file. If necessary, he may also speak to them. This will take up seven working days from receiving the reply and the file.

8 We will let you know the result of the review within four working 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. If you remain dissatisfied at the end of our complaints process, you would then be at liberty to contact the Legal Ombudsman, provided you are a) an individual; b) a business or enterprise that was a micro-enterprise (European Union definition) when it referred the complaint to the authorised person13; c) a charity that had an annual income net of tax of less than £1 million when it referred the complaint to the authorised person; d) a club/association/organisation, the affairs of which are managed by its members/a committee/a committee of its members, that had an annual income net of tax of less than £1 million when it referred the complaint to the authorised person; e) a trustee of a trust that had an asset value of less than £1 million when it referred the complaint to the authorised person; or f) a personal representative or beneficiary of the estate of a person who, before they died, had not referred the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman

The Legal Ombudsman can investigate complaints no later than one year from the date of the problem happening or one year from when the complainant should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint. However, if we send a final written response to your complaint within eight weeks of receiving it, the time limit for you to refer the matter to the Legal Ombudsman would be six months from the date of that final response. If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, their contact details are as follows:-

• Website – legalombudsman.org.uk
• Telephone – 0300 555 0333 between 10am - 4pm Monday to Friday (calls to 03 numbers will cost no more than calls to national geographic numbers starting 01 or 02) from both mobiles and landlines. Calls are recorded and may be used for training and monitoring purposes.
• Email – enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
• Postal address – Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6806 Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can assist you in certain circumstances such as the following:

i). Shutting down a law firm without telling you
ii). Dishonesty or deliberately overcharging you
iii). Taking or losing your money
iv). Treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can be contacted as follows:

• Website - sra.org.uk
• Telephone - 0370 06 2555 between 8:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and 9:30 am to 6:00 pm on a Tuesday.
• Email: contactcentre@sra.org.uk
• Postal Address: Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B11RN

Alternative complaints resolution bodies also exist and are competent to deal with complaints about legal services, should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme at the end of our internal complaints process. They provide Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) services. Small Claims Mediation is one such body, details of which can be found at www.small-claims-mediation.co.uk; and another is Ombudsman Services, details of which can be found at www.ombudsman-services.org. Under the provisions of the EU Directive on Consumer Alternative Dispute Resolution, to pursue this process you would have to be a “consumer”, namely an individual acting for purposes which are wholly or mainly outside your trade, business, craft or profession.

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