Our complaints policy

At John Barkers Solicitors Limited we aim to provide the highest standards of service to our clients and to operate our business to the professional standards which others affected by our conduct have the right to expect.

Dealing effectively

We are 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.

Our complaints procedure

If you have a complaint about our service or a bill that we have rendered on or both please contact us with the details.

The person to contact is:

Mr Jonathan Colin Stones
John Barkers Solicitors Limited
Telegraph House
80 Cleethorpe Road
Grimsby
North East Lincolnshire
DN31 3EF

By telephone:  01472 358686

By email:  jcs@jbarkers.co.uk

What will happen next?

• 1. We will send you a letter/email acknowledging receipt of your complaint within 14 days of us receiving the complaint, enclosing a copy of this procedure. It may be necessary for us to ask you to explain, clarify or provide further necessary information in respect of your complaint.
• 2. We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve reviewing your file and speaking to the member of staff who acted for you.
• 3. Within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter we will either: provide a full detailed response in writing, including our suggestions for resolving the matter; (where appropriate) invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint.
• 4. If a meeting is held, we will write to you within 14 days after the meeting to confirm the outcome.
• 5. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again with any further comments or information you wish to supply and we shall review the decision.
• 6. We will then write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our further or final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
• 7. If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.

If still unresolved at this stage, you may take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman. Normally, you will have to bring your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within 6 months of receiving a final response from us about your complaint and 6 years from the date of the act or omission giving rise to the complaint or alternatively 3 years from the date you should reasonably have known there are grounds for complaint (if the act/omission took place before 6 October 2010 or was more than 6 years ago).

However, please note that from 1 April 2023, these time limits are changing. 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 that there was a concern. The requirement to refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final responses to you remains the same.

Legal Ombudsman

The Legal Ombudsman can be contacted at:

Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6167
Slough
SL1 0EH

Tel: 0300 555 0333 or 0121 245 3050 (calling from overseas)

enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

SRA Solicitors Regulation Authority

If you feel we have breached an SRA principle you may report this to the SRA at https://www.sra.org.uk/. A full list of SRA Principles can be found here https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/standards-regulations/principles/