MG Legal Solicitors 
Longridge: 01772 783314 Garstang: 01995 602129 Lancaster: 01524 581306 Lytham: 01253 202452  

Complaints Procedure  

At MG Legal, all of our team strive to give you the highest possible levels of service so, if at any point throughout your matter you have any queries or concerns about how your matter is being handled, we want to address these with you straight away, and attempt to resolve matters to a satisfactory conclusion.  
 
You should follow our procedure, below, to resolve any issues that you may feel you have with the service our team has provided. 
A smiling person.
MG Legal's team pride themselves on their high levels of customer service, and we strive to ensure that every client's matter is finalised as quickly and efficiently as possible, whilst retaining that high level. 
 
We would be disappointed to think that any of our clients had concerns over how their matter is being handled and, therefore, we would always be happy to address any issues with you. 
 
1. Contact the fee earner who is dealing with your matter directly to raise any concerns that you have about your matter. 
 
You should contact the fee earner with conduct of your matter to raise any concerns that you have about the service they have provided. You should contact them at your local office - Garstang (01995 602 129), Longridge (01772 783 314) or Lancaster (01524 581 306) - and they will strive to resolve any issues immediately. At MG Legal, all members of staff pride ourselves on the level of client service that we offer, and none of us would want to think that a client was unhappy with the service we provide. Each member of staff would therefore welcome the opportunity to resolve any concerns you may have with you directly, so that your matter can proceed to finalisation as soon as possible. 
 
If you have given the fee earner reasonable opportunity to resolve your issue, and you do not feel that a satisfactory resolution has been achieved, you should proceed to the next step. 
 
We would explain that a reasonable opportunity for the fee earner to resolve your concerns means that you must give them time to look into any issues that you have raised, and formulate a full response to you before escalating matters. Some members of staff will be out of the office or engaged on a day-to-day basis with client appointments, Court attendances and every member of staff is also entitled to annual leave. All fee earners will aim to respond to any concerns raised within 48 hours of receiving any written correspondence from a client raising concerns. If you receive an out-of-office response from the fee earner, their reply may take longer to reach you. 
2. Contact our Client Care Officer to discuss any concerns that you have. 
 
You can write to our Client Care Officer, Mark Gregory. You can contact Mr Gregory by email to mgregory@mglegal.co.uk or by letter to MG Legal Solicitors, 7 Pringle Court, Garstang, Preston, Lancashire, PR3 1LN. Your correspondence will be recorded and then passed to the relevant department. We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within two working days of receipt.  
 
The department, alongside Mr Gregory, will review your correspondence and investigate any concerns raised. If more information is required from you to investigate, or we need clarification of any of the points raised in your correspondence, we will contact you to discuss this. We may contact you by telephone or in writing, so please ensure that any correspondence from you includes full contact details. 
3. You should receive a response to your correspondence within 28 working days. 
 
You should receive a full response to your concerns within 28 working days, unless we feel that a response is required sooner to aid progression of your matter. Our team will do everything they can to ensure that your matter is still progressed as quickly as possible and, therefore, if a response to your concerns can be provided quicker than 28 days, we will do so. 
 
If we require more time to investigate any concerns that you have raised, we will contact you to confirm the revised timescales for providing a full response, as well as an explanation of the reason for the changes. 
4. You should receive a full, final response to your correspondence. 
 
We will provide you with a full and final response to your complaint. If we consider it necessary, we may arrange a meeting with you to go through and discuss your concerns, explain our findings and, it is hoped, resolve any concerns that you had. 
 
If we have a meeting with you, we will then write to you within 5 working days to confirm the discussions that took place during the meeting and any outcomes or suggestions that have been agreed with you. 
 
We have up to 8 weeks to provide a full response and resolve any concerns that you have. We will aim to successfully resolve any complaints within this time frame, as we would not want any client to have any concerns over the impeccably high level of service that we offer at MG Legal.  
5. If you remain dissatisfied at the end of our complaints process, you may then be able to take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman whose address is PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ.  
 
Their telephone number is 0300 555 0333. Their e-mail address is enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk Their website is at www.legalombudsman.org.uk . The Legal Ombudsman is the statutory independent body to which you may refer your complaint, once we have concluded our professional obligation to try to resolve it. If the Legal Ombudsman is satisfied that the firm’s proposals for resolving a complaint are reasonable, it may decline to investigate further.  
 
The time limit for you to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman is six months from our final response to the complaint. 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, we very much hope that this will not be necessary.  
 
The classes of persons and organisations who are able to complain to the Legal Ombudsman can be found here: www.legalombudsman.org.uk/?faqs=who-can[1]use-our-service If we are unable to resolve your complaint using our internal processes, alternative complaint bodies such as ProMediate (www.promediate.co.uk) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and MG Legal agree to use such services.  
6. We are also regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.  
 
If you think that MG Legal or any individual within the firm has breached any of the SRA Principles then you may report the issue directly to our regulator, and you can find more details on how and when to report an issue to them on their website www.sra.org.uk. The SRA does not have the power to award compensation for poor service, or to reduce or refund your legal fees. If your report relates to these issues you will be signposted back to the Legal Ombudsman (explained above). 
As your local solicitors, we would not want to think that any of our clients have cause to be unhappy with the service our excellent team pride themselves on providing. 
 
As such, we will always strive to put matters right whenever we can.