Our Complaints Procedure
Rise Legal consider a complaint to be an expression of dissatisfaction made by way of formal complaint, orally or in writing, from or on behalf of someone entitled to raise a complainant about our provision of a legal service.
We are committed to always providing a high-quality service. If, however, you have a complaint we want to help you to resolve it. This will obviously help you and help us to improve our standards.
If you have a complaint, first instance please speak to the person dealing with your matter. They will do their best to resolve it for you.
If your matter remains unresolved, please then speak to Jeremy Garson or Sharon Garson.
Jeremy Garson is our nominated Compliance Officer for the Legal Practice (COLP). You can contact him by telephone on 01727 226336, by email at jeremy@rise-legal.com or write to him at Fountain House, 2 Victoria Square, St. Albans AL1 3TF
What will happen next?
1. Within 5 working days we will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain it in writing or give us some further details (if necessary).
2. Upon receipt your complaint will be recorded in our central register.
3. Following receipt of your complaint (or its clarification if requested) we will investigate your complaint and inform you of the timescale within which we anticipate being able to respond. The investigation may include the following and anything else considered necessary to investigate the complaint:
· Examination of your file
· Discussion with the member of staff and supervising Partner
4. We will then either write to you or invite you to a meeting, in person or by video conference, to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint.
6. If we meet with you, we will, within 14 days of the date of that meeting, write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions that we have agreed with you.
7. If you do not want a meeting, we will send to you within 28 days of your declining the invitation a detailed reply to your complaint to include any suggestions for resolving the matter.
8. If we must change any of the timescales above for dealing with your complaint, we shall let you know and explain why.
9 We have 8 weeks to consider your complaint and provide you with a final response. If we have not done this or if you are not satisfied with the outcome of the investigation of your complaint, you may complain to the Legal Ombudsman in writing at PO Box 6806 Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ or by telephone on 0300 555 0333 or by e-mail at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk. Normally you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within 6 months of receiving our final written response to your complaint
The Legal Ombudsman scheme says that they can look at complaints if:
It happened within six years of the problem happening;
It happened within three years from when you found out about it;
You refer your complaint to us within six months of your service provider’s final response
10. You should be aware that, when your complaint relates to a bill the Legal Ombudsman will not consider your complaint while your bill is being assessed by the Court.
11. You are also entitled to contact the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) about us. However the SRA does not deal with issues of poor service which as detailed above should be referred to the Legal Ombudsman. The SRA will consider, for example, any concerns relating to discrimination, dishonesty, taking or losing your money or any other breaches of the Solicitors Regulation Code of Conduct which can be found here
12. If you wish to report a matter to the SRA you can do so via their website here, by email contactcentre@sra.org.uk, by telephone 0370 606 2555 or in writing to Contact Centre, The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN.