Our complaints policy

Roger Brooker & Co is committed to providing a high quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards. Whenever possible, please raise any initial client care problems with the person acting on your matter to give them the opportunity of resolving matters with you. Often matters can be quickly resolved in this way.

Our complaints procedure

If you have a concern or a complaint that has not been dealt with to your satisfaction by the person handling your case or their supervising partner, please contact us as soon as you are aware of the problem so this can be addressed. Please contact Roger Brooker himself by email rlbrooker@rogerbrooker.co.uk or by post Parker House, 104 Hutton Road, Shenfield, Brentwood, Essex, CM15 8NB.

What will happen next?

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within five days of our receiving the complaint, enclosing a copy of this procedure. If you require this in a different format, please make us aware of this.

2. We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing your complaint to our client care partner, Roger Brooker, who will review your matter file and speak to the member of staff who acted for you.

3. Roger Brooker will then invite you to a meeting to discuss and, it is hoped, resolve your complaint. He will do this within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.

4. Within three days of the meeting, Roger Brooker will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions he has agreed with you.

5. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, Roger Brooker will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including his suggestions for resolving the matter, within 21 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.

6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again to explain why you remain unhappy with our response and we will review your comments. Depending on the matter we may at this stage arrange for partner to review the decision.

7. We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

8. If we are unable to resolve your complaint then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman who can be contacted at PO Box 6806 Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ, by email at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or by telephone on 0300 555 0333. The Legal Ombudsman will expect us to try and resolve the complaint with you directly and will usually agree to give us six months in order to do this.

9. The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the
act or omission about which you are concerned or within one year of you realising there was a
concern. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our
final response to you. However, please also note that the Legal Ombudsman will retain the
ability to apply Rule 4.7 which allows an Ombudsman to exercise discretion to extend the 1
year time limit for specific customers if, on evidence, it was fair and reasonable to do so.

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

Complaints in relation to bills

The complaints procedure above also applies to complaints arising concerning our bill. There may
also be a right to object to the bill by applying to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III
of the Solicitors Act 1974; the Legal Ombudsman may not consider a complaint about a bill if you
have applied to the court for assessment of that bill.

Roger Brooker & Co