We try to provide the best service possible and manage any issues as they arise for our clients and this means that we do not receive many complaints about our services or our staff, but if you feel dissatisfied please talk to us.

If you have any concerns about the quality of service provided by your fee earner or from our firm generally, please discuss your concerns with your fee earner directly first so that any issues can be resolved.

If you feel after addressing the issues with your fee earner that your concerns have still not been resolved, please request our complaints procedure as it can be used  to consider the issues raised.

A complaint arises when there is dissatisfaction and some form of detriment is alleged to flow from it.

Our complaints procedure considers both general complaints and data protection related complaints.

A copy of our complaints procedure can be requested by emailing info@hannayslaw.co.uk , by calling 0191 4974630 or 0191 4555361 or by completing the form at the end of this page.

If you would like to discuss your dissatisfaction with our complaints manager, please call 0191 4974630 or 0191 4555361 and ask to speak to Mr Kim Rainford. If he is not available please ask the member of staff to take your details and Mr Rainford will return your call.

Explaining your dissatisfaction to us

It is important that you explain to us what is causing your dissatisfaction using your own words.

Your email, letter or phone call can be quite short. If you are writing to us (email or letter) you can use bullet points to explain your complaint. There is also a contact form at the end of this page that you can use to contact us.

We do not need you to spend your time and effort producing a long legally worded document as we will understand the issues as soon as you explain them to us.

Some clients have submitted complaints to us using AI services to help them to word their complaint. We find that when we receive the complaint produced by AI it uses overly legal language and terminology and is often excessively long and wordy. The other point to bear in mind when using AI is that as soon as you upload the details of your matter to AI, it is in the public domain and no longer confidential. Your information can be used by AI in the future and it will be difficult for you to control who has access to your information.

As professional solicitors and lawyers we know the implications when things go wrong for our clients. We will check with you whether we have understood what you are complaining about and the effect of the detriment that arose.

How to submit a complaint

• If your matter with us is ongoing, in the first instance you should contact your fee earner. Your fee earner will understand your matter and may be able to offer an explanation or put things right for you. We will do our very best to resolve any service issues you raise and assure you that raising service issues with your fee earner will not affect how we continue to handle your matter.
• If matters are not resolved and you remain dissatisfied and have suffered detriment you may wish to make a complaint.
• Think about what your complaint is and put it in your own words to us. If you feel that you have suffered a financial loss explain to us what that loss is and if possible provide us with supporting documents.
• You can raise service issues and data issues directly with Kim Rainford, our Managing Director, who is also our Complaints Manager. He can be contacted directly by calling 0191 4555361 or by emailing or writing to us.
• If you email us at info@hannayslaw.co.uk your email will be passed to Mr Rainford.
• We will send you a copy of our Complaints Procedure when we acknowledge your complaint within five working days of receiving it and try to deal with your complaint to resolution or conclusion within eight weeks from when we received your complaint.

What do to if we cannot resolve your complaint

The Legal Ombudsman can assist you if we are unable to resolve your complaint between ourselves.

The Legal Ombudsman Service will look at your complaint independently and decide an outcome that both parties have to adhere to.

The Legal Ombudsman only accepts service complaints where legal clients are dissatisfied with the service received and some form of detriment is alleged to flow from it.

Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first and that we have reached a final outcome.

If you want to use the Ombudsman service, you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within the following time period:

• Within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint from us,
  and
• No more than one year from the date of act/omission; or
• One year from the date when the complainant should have realised that there was a cause for complaint.

If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them directly.

Legal Ombudsman contact details:

Web: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9am to 5pm.

Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

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

If your complaint is related to Data Protection, you must still go through our Complaints Procedure before contacting the Information Commissioner : https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/

Negligence

Some complaints cannot be dealt with under our complaints procedure or by the Legal Ombudsman. For instance, if we have been negligent in carrying out the work we have completed for you and you have suffered a large financial loss that cannot be dealt with by using our Complaints Process.

You may not know that we have been negligent while conducting your matter, but if  you raise a complaint with us and we recognise that negligence is involved we will inform you that we cannot deal with the matter through our complaints process and the steps you should then take.

Dissatisfaction with our Bill
You are also entitled to make a complaint if you are dissatisfied with our bill. You may have the right to object to your legal bill by applying to the Court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. There is more information here: https://www.gov.uk/challenge-solicitors-bill

If all the Bill or part of our Bill remains unpaid we may be entitled to charge interest.

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