Keystone Law is committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we will address the problem and your concerns. This will help us to improve our standards and we review complaints received annually for this reason.

This policy sets out how we deal with formal complaints. If you feel your concerns might be better addressed by speaking with the members of the firm acting for you, then you should contact them first, please note that doing so is not raising a complaint. You can make use of this policy at any time and should you do so, it will not affect our instructions and the services we provide to you, though it may in some instances create a conflict of interest (as explained below).

Complaints may concern anything we have done or failed to do. This ranges from our advice, whether on matters of law or in connection with any financial services we have provided, to the quality of service we provide and what we have charged.

Once you have made a complaint, we will respond in the manner set out in this Complaints Policy.

What should you do if you have a complaint?

If you have a complaint, you should write to The Complaints Team, Keystone Law,  48 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1JF.

Your letter should set out the full details of your complaint, including what you feel went wrong and what remedy you seek. You should enclose all relevant correspondence or documentation to support your complaint. We recommend using special delivery when corresponding with us about a complaint. That way, you will know when we have received your complaint.

The Complaints Policy applies to all complaints, including complaints raised by parties who are not our client. If you wish to complain, but are not our client, you should note that client confidentiality and data protection rules may determine the nature of our response.

Complaints and conflicts of interest

As a regulated firm of solicitors, we must comply with our professional rules. These require us not to act where we may find ourselves in a position of a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest would arise in a situation where, on the one hand we have a duty to act in your best interests, and on the other hand our own interests (for example, in light of a complaint raised, it would require us to take a different approach).

This should in no way affect whether you choose to make a complaint. However, you should be aware that there are circumstances where, once you have made a complaint, we may no longer be able to act for you on the matter. In this case, we would let you know and discuss with you how best to proceed, bearing in mind our overriding duty to comply with our professional rules.

What will happen once we have received your complaint?

  1. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within five clear working days of our receipt of the complaint, enclosing a copy of this Complaints Policy.
  2. We will start to investigate your complaint. This will involve passing your complaint to an appropriate person in our Complaints Team, who will independently review your matter file and speak to the relevant individual(s), including those named in the complaint.
  3. Where we believe a telephone conversation could assist in resolving the complaint, then, within eight working days of receiving your complaint, we will write to you to arrange a resolution telephone call.
  4. Where we speak with you on the telephone and are unable to resolve your complaint by agreement or where we do not believe a resolution telephone conversation would be appropriate, then within eight weeks of receiving your complaint, we will write to you with our findings, which may include a suggested solution, where appropriate.
  5. We will endeavour to provide our final determination letter within eight weeks of receiving your complaint to us.
  6. Finally, please note that where it is reasonable to do so, we may increase some of the timescales detailed above. If this is the case, then we will inform you in writing and we shall provide a reasonable explanation as to why we have extended the time periods. Examples of such explanations include where you have multiple complaints that all need to be investigated, or where it takes longer than anticipated to contact an important witness whose evidence is necessary for our investigation.

In the event that you are not satisfied with the firm’s final determination letter, or if we do not resolve your complaint within eight weeks of your contacting us, then the Legal Ombudsman may be able to consider your complaint. There are, however, restrictions to this service, as set out on the Ombudsman’s website (see below).

If we are unable to resolve your complaint, then you can have the complaint independently reviewed by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about service issues with lawyers. 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.

For further information, you can write to the Legal Ombudsman at Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH or at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk. You can telephone them on 0300 555 0333 (or by minicom on : 0300 555 1777).

You may also be able to object to our bill by applying to the court for an assessment under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. If you exercise this right, you could be prevented from making a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman. In addition, if you apply to the court for an assessment and if all or part of the bill remains unpaid at the end of that assessment, we are entitled to charge interest. There are strict time limits that apply to this process and you may wish to seek independent legal advice.

If you are not a client, you may be able to make a complaint in certain circumstances, for example, where you have an indirect involvement in any matter we are handling for another person and you suffer a loss or other adverse consequences from any actions that we take for them.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority may be able to help you if you are concerned about our behaviour, for example, if you are concerned about dishonesty, taking or losing money or being treated unfairly because of your age, a disability or another characteristic.