Complaints Policy
Thursfields is committed to providing a high-quality legal service to its clients. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to sort out any mistakes or misunderstandings, and to improve our standards.
If you have a complaint, please raise the problem with the lawyer responsible for your matter or, if you prefer, our Complaints Handling Officer, Mr Darren Cox, who can be contacted by email on dcox@thursfields.co.uk or by post at Thursfields Solicitors, 14 Church Street, Kidderminster, DY10 2AH.
What will happen next?
- We will endeavour to acknowledge receipt of your complaint in writing within 5 days of receiving
- We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve our Complaints Handling Officer reviewing your file and speaking to the member of staff who acted for you.
- At that stage our Complaints Handling Officer will decide who is best placed to deal with your concern. This might be, for instance, the lawyer with whom you have been dealing, the lawyer’s immediate supervisor, the head of the lawyer’s team or the Complaints Handling Officer.
- Our Complaints Handling Officer will arrange for a detailed letter of response to be sent to you by the person in 3. above, including, if appropriate, any suggestions for resolving the matter. This will usually be within 28 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter, but if further time is needed, we will endeavour to keep you informed.
- During the above period, the person charged with responding might invite you to a meeting to discuss and resolve your If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible or deemed appropriate, we may instead offer you a chance to discuss the matter by telephone.
- Once a full response has been sent to you, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact the Complaints Handling Officer again as soon as possible. We will then arrange for someone unconnected with the matter to review the decision. In most cases this will fall to the Complaints Handling Officer themselves but they will nominate someone else if they feel that it is appropriate to do so.
- We will write to you, usually within 28 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
- If we have to change any of these timescales we will let you know and explain
- If you are still not satisfied, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH about your complaint.
From the 1 April 2023 the Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within a year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within a year of you realising there was a concern. The requirement to refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you remains the same
For further information, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk.
Note that the Legal Ombudsman service cannot be used by businesses or most other organisations unless they are below certain size limits. Further details are available from the Legal Ombudsman.
- If a complaint cannot be resolved you may also be able to ask for it to be referred to a process of alternative dispute resolution using a certified provider. We are not required to agree to such a request. In any case this is not available to businesses, only consumers. We will give you more information about that right if it becomes
- In addition, we are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (the SRA). You can also refer any concerns that you have about us to the SRA which can be contacted at The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RW or by telephone on 0370 606 2555 or via its website at sra.org.uk/home/contact-us
