Transparency & Complaints

The SRA Transparency Rules oblige us to publish details of our Complaints Handling Procedure which can be found below.

At Steer & Co we aim to provide you with a high quality legal service at all times. If you feel we have not achieved these high standards, you are entitled to make a complaint.  When a complaint is made, we believe it is important that any complaint is handled in a timely and fair manner for both parties.  Our priority when receiving a complaint is to identify and resolve any misunderstandings and preserve goodwill, if things have gone wrong.

Our policy is to listen carefully to you and involve you fully in the process of resolving the complaint.

If you are unhappy about the outcome of the investigation into your complaint, you have a right of appeal to our Senior Partner, who will review the complaint in its entirety.

We aim to have one contact for you to talk through your complaint and to remain your key contact throughout the complaints procedure. Any complaint received will be referred to our Office Manager.

We will keep a record of your complaint both so that we can monitor the situation and, if appropriate, learn how our service can be improved in future.

If, upon investigation, we believe your complaint is justified, we will endeavour to offer a prompt and fair solution or compensation. If we do not feel that your complaint is justified, we will let you know why.

Despite the above, if you are unhappy with our decision you should write to our Senior Partner, within 5 working days of receiving our decision letter. She will review the decision and respond to you within 2 weeks of receiving your letter.

If you are still not satisfied with the way we have handled your complaint you may have recourse, you can contact the Solicitors Regulation Authority at https://www.sra.org.uk and/or the Legal Ombudsman at https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/, you have six months to take the complaint further.

We set out our timetable for managing any complaints:

If you make a complaint We will resolve the complaint immediately if possible. If this is not possible, we will escalate to the Office Manager.
Within 3 working days of your complaint We will acknowledge your complaint in writing.
Within 3 weeks of acknowledging your complaint We will investigate your complaint and may ask for additional information during this time. Provided we get this additional information in a timely manner we will write to you with the outcome of our investigation into your complaint.
Within 5 working days of receipt of our response to your complaint, if you are still not happy you may appeal Please write to our Senior Partner.
Within 3 working days of receipt of an appeal We will acknowledge your appeal in writing.
Within 2 weeks of acknowledging your appeal The Senior Partner will respond to your appeal.