Complaints

Access Legal from Shoosmiths operates a separate complaints process - click here.

We are committed to providing a high quality legal service to our clients.

If you are unhappy with the level of service provided, or any bill, please contact the person dealing with your matter or the partner responsible for your work (their name should be identified in our initial letter to you).
We take complaints very seriously and will usually aim to deal with these as soon as possible but in any event within fourteen days. Occasionally this is not possible but if this is the case we will explain why.
If you remain dissatisfied with our response, please contact or ask to be put in touch with Andrew Tubbs, Chairman, at The Lakes, Northampton NN4 7SH, telephone 03700 863000. Andrew will ensure that a further independent review is carried out either by himself or another appropriate partner. We will then write to you with our final position.
Once you have our final response you may have the right to take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman. You should raise your complaint with them within six months of our final response to you. The Legal Ombudsman can accept a complaint within six years of the act/omission or three years from when you should have known about the complaint although they will not accept complaints where the act or date of awareness was before 6 October 2010. Their telephone number is 0300 555 0333 or they can be contacted by email at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or by post at PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ. Further information can be obtained from their website at http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Customers of our lender clients

If you are a customer of one of our lender clients and you are unhappy with the way in which Shoosmiths has acted, please contact us on the telephone number at the top of our letter quoting our reference number. Alternatively you can write to us at Shoosmiths, The Lakes, Bedford Road, Northampton, NN4 7SH, quoting the reference number from our letter.
Where possible we aim to respond to complaints by the close of business on the business day following receipt of a complaint, however where further investigation is needed, we will acknowledge your complaint, by letter, within 5 business days and will provide you with a copy of our complaints procedure.
Where we have not been able to resolve your complaint within 28 days of receipt we will write to you advising you of the progress of the investigation into your complaint; in any event we will provide you with our final response within 8 weeks.
If, after we have issued our final response you are not happy with the outcome of our investigation, in certain circumstances you may be able to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Full details will be provided in our final response.
You should be aware that any referral to the Financial Ombudsman Service must be made within 6 months of the final response that we issue to you.