Client Complaints Handling Policy

At Dominic Mills & Co. we are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients.  We will always do everything in our power to give you the best possible support but in the unlikely event that something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it.  This will help us to improve our standards.

If you have a complaint, please send a letter or email to us detailing your concerns.

What will happen next? 

Dominic Mills will deal with your complaint in the first instance. He will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within five working days of receiving it.  Dominic will also enclose a copy of this procedure and will ask you to confirm or explain the details of the complaint.

Dominic will then investigate your complaint.  He will review your matter file and speak to any other member of staff who acted in this matter for you. Within 10 working days of sending you the acknowledgment letter and having received the details of the complaint from yourself, Dominic will invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve the matter. If you do not wish to attend a meeting this can also be discussed by telephone, or he can rely purely on the information that you have provided to assess the complaint, although the latter is not recommended as we would always wish to talk any issue through with you to ensure that we fully appreciate your concerns.

Within five working days of the meeting or telephone discussion, Dominic will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions he has agreed with you. If you do not want a meeting or if it is not possible, Dominic will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including his suggestions for resolving the matter, within 10 working days of sending you the acknowledgement letter and having received the details of the complaint from you.

At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should write to us again.  Dominic will then review his decision in the light of your on-going concerns. Following Dominic’s review of his decision if you remain unsatisfied, we will ask Barbara Spoor of Master Compliance Ltd, PO Box 6588, Southam, Warwickshire, CV47 4DE (a professional complaints manager, who is completely independent of Dominic Mills & Co) to review your complaint and to respond to us within working 10 days.  We will let you know the result of the review within 5 working days of the end of the review. At this time Dominic will write to you confirming his final position on your complaint and explaining his reasons.

If you remain dissatisfied, you are able to raise your complaint with The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) who can be contacted as follows: PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ, Tel: 0300 555033, Web: www.legalombudsman.org.uk.  There are time limits for submission of a complaint to them.  They will accept a complaint made within 6 years of the act or omission giving rise to the complaint, or within 3 years of the client being reasonably aware of the complaint, this time limit being applicable after 6 October 2010.  Where the act or omission took place prior to 6 October 2010, the complaint must be raised with them within 3 years of when the client should have been reasonably aware of the complaint.   In addition the client must raise the complaint within 6 months of the final response under the internal complaint procedure of the firm.

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

If your complaint relates to the behaviour of a solicitor, rather than the service provided, and if we have not been able to resolve the issue, you may be able to complain to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, who can be contacted as follows: Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN,

Tel: 0370 606 2555, Web: www.sra.org.uk.