Complaints about legal advice

If you are not satisfied with any aspect of our service or invoices, in the first instance, please discuss this with the fee earner with overall responsibility for your matter. If you remain unsatisfied, please set out your complaint in detail in writing and send this to the fee earner with overall responsibility for your matter. We will carefully consider any written particularised complaint and attempt to resolve it promptly and fairly at our discretion. The fee earner with overall responsibility for your matter is named in our engagement letter with you, subject to any subsequent changes. Their contact details are available on our website or on emails or letters sent to you during the course of your matter.

We will acknowledge your compliant in writing, investigate your concerns and provide you with a written interim or final reply explaining our decision and stating any proposed solution. We may ask you to explain part or all of your complaint and invite you to propose a solution. We will provide you with any final written reply within eight weeks of the date of receipt of any complaint, subject to provision by you of any requested information which we require and the amount of documents or information that we are required to review to investigate and determine the outcome of your complaint.

If we are not able to fully resolve any complaint within eight weeks, you may complain to the Legal Ombudsman. You must contact the Legal Ombudsman within either one year from the date of the act or omission or one year from the date when you should have realised that there was cause for complaint and within six months of our final response to any complaint. Please find contact details for the Legal Ombudsman at www.legalombudsman.org.uk.

If you wish to complain about our behaviour for breach of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s principles, please contact the Solicitors Regulation Authority. For contact details and more information, please visit www.sra.org.uk.

 

Complaints about mediation services

If you are not satisfied with any aspect of the mediation services of Harry Stirk, as contractually provided by Stirk Law Limited, in the first instance, please discuss this with us. If you remain unsatisfied, please set out your complaint in detail in writing and send this to us marked for the attention of Harry Stirk. We will carefully consider any written particularised complaint and attempt to resolve it promptly and fairly at our discretion. Our contact details are available on this website.

We will acknowledge your complaint in writing within five working days of receipt. We will investigate your concerns and provide you with a written interim or final reply explaining our decision and stating any proposed solution within 21 working days of receipt. We may ask you to explain part or all of your complaint and invite you to propose a solution. In some cases, we may require more time to reply to you pending receipt of any requested information, the performance of any action or the amount of documents or information that we are reasonably required to review to investigate and determine the outcome of your complaint. We will notify you in writing of any additional time required.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint, at that stage you may refer the matter to the Civil Mediation Council (CMC) on one of the following applicable grounds:

  1. a Regulated Mediator no longer meets the requirements for Regulation;
  2. a Regulated Mediator is not a fit and proper person to hold Regulated status; or
  3. a Member of the CMC has brought the CMC or the mediation profession or the mediation process into disrepute.

You must make any referral to the CMC within one month of the conclusion of consideration of your complaint by us and in any event within six months of the events giving rise to the complaint. All complaints must be in writing and addressed to the CMC Secretariat at secretariat@civilmediation.org. On receipt of your e-mail, the Secretariat will send you a complaint form to be completed and returned. All documents relating to the complaint must be submitted with the complaints form or, if any are unavailable, you must give an indication as to when they will be supplied. Complaints will be dealt with in accordance with the procedures adopted by the Complaints and Discipline Committee of the CMC from time to time. The determination of a complaint by the CMC and any disciplinary measures imposed are final and usually made within six months of receipt of the complaint. For contact details and more information, please visit www.civilmediation.org.


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