COMPLAINTS HANDLING PROCEDURE
Our commitment to you
Catherine Higgins Law Limited is committed to providing a high standard of legal service and client care.
If you are unhappy with any aspect of our service, our charges, the way in which your matter has been handled, or the way in which we have handled your personal information, we would like you to tell us.
We take complaints seriously. They provide us with an opportunity to resolve concerns, put matters right where appropriate and improve the service we provide.
Making a complaint will not affect the way in which we handle your matter, and you will not be charged for making or dealing with a complaint.
Our complaints process is designed to be straightforward, accessible and focused on resolving concerns as early as possible. It reflects the principles of good complaints handling recommended by the Legal Ombudsman, including early resolution wherever appropriate.
How to make a complaint
You can make a complaint in writing, by email, by telephone or in person.
You do not need to use legal terminology or describe your concern as a formal complaint. If you express dissatisfaction about our service, charges or the way in which we have handled your personal information, we will consider whether it should be dealt with under this procedure.
Complaints should be addressed to:
The Complaints Handler
Catherine Higgins Law Limited
45 Allerton Road
Woolton
Liverpool
Merseyside
L25 7RE
Telephone: 0151 428 2472
Email: enquiries@chigginslaw.co.uk
If you need help making a complaint or require information in a different format or reasonable adjustments because of a disability, vulnerability or other circumstance, please tell us and we will take reasonable steps to assist you.
You may also ask someone to complain on your behalf. We may need to obtain evidence that they have authority to act for you before discussing confidential information with them.
If your concern relates to the way in which we have handled your personal information, you also have a statutory right to make a data protection complaint to us. Data protection complaints are dealt with in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018, as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, and the procedure set out below.
What will happen when you complain?
- Acknowledgement
We aim to acknowledge your complaint within two working days of receiving it.
Our acknowledgement will normally:
- confirm that we have received your complaint;
- identify the person responsible for dealing with it;
- summarise the issues we understand you to be raising, where appropriate;
- explain what will happen next;
- tell you when you can expect to hear from us; and
- ask you for any additional information we reasonably require.
The eight-week period for dealing with a service complaint begins when we first receive the complaint. It does not restart when we acknowledge it, allocate it to another person or begin a later stage of our procedure.
- Early resolution
Where appropriate, we will first consider whether your concerns can be resolved promptly without the need for a lengthy formal investigation.
This may involve speaking with you by telephone, arranging a meeting, providing further information or clarification, correcting an error, reviewing a bill, apologising, carrying out further work or considering another practical solution.
We will listen to what has caused your concern and, where possible, ask what you would consider to be a satisfactory outcome.
You are not required to attend a meeting or telephone discussion if you would prefer your complaint to be dealt with in writing.
If an early resolution is agreed, we will confirm the outcome to you in writing.
Where early resolution is not appropriate, is unsuccessful, or you ask us to carry out a formal investigation, your complaint will proceed to the next stage.
- Full investigation
Your complaint will be investigated by an appropriate person within the firm.
Where possible, the person investigating the complaint will not be the person whose work or conduct is the subject of the complaint. Depending upon the circumstances, this may be a Head of Department, Director or another suitably senior person.
The investigator will consider the issues raised and may:
- review your file and relevant correspondence;
- speak to the person or people involved;
- review information you have provided;
- check our client care documentation, policies, procedures and other relevant records;
- consider whether the service provided was reasonable;
- consider whether any mistake or service failure occurred; and
- consider what, if anything, should be done to put matters right.
We will deal with your complaint fairly and objectively.
If we need further information from you, we will ask for it as soon as reasonably practicable.
We aim to provide a substantive written response as soon as possible and ordinarily within 21 working days of receiving your complaint. More complex complaints may take longer.
If we are unable to provide our substantive response within that period, we will explain why and tell you when we expect to respond. We will keep you reasonably informed of progress.
In all cases, we will ensure that you are informed of your right to refer a service complaint to the Legal Ombudsman if the complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within eight weeks of the date on which you first complained to us.
- Our written outcome
Our written response will:
- identify the issues we have investigated;
- explain what we have found;
- respond to each material part of your complaint;
- explain the reasons for our conclusions;
- identify any service failure or other issue we have found;
- explain any action we propose to take; and
- identify any remedy we consider appropriate.
Where something has gone wrong, appropriate remedies may include an apology, correcting an error, completing further work, reducing or refunding fees, reimbursing an appropriate loss or expense, or another proportionate remedy depending upon the circumstances.
Where we consider that the service provided was reasonable, we will explain why we have reached that conclusion.
Our response will be written in clear and straightforward language.
- Review
If you remain dissatisfied with our response, you may ask for it to be reviewed.
Where practicable, the review will be undertaken by a Director or another senior person who has not previously determined the complaint.
You should explain why you remain dissatisfied and identify any points you believe have not been addressed.
We aim to complete any review within 10 working days of receiving your request.
Our review will not extend the overall eight-week period available before a service complaint may be referred to the Legal Ombudsman.
We will confirm our final position in writing and make it clear when our internal complaints procedure has concluded.
What happens if we cannot resolve your service complaint?
If we are unable to resolve your complaint, or you remain dissatisfied after our complaints procedure has concluded, you may be entitled to ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider your complaint independently.
The Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints about the service provided by lawyers, including complaints concerning legal costs.
Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will usually expect you to have given us an opportunity to resolve the complaint first.
You may also contact the Legal Ombudsman if your complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within eight weeks of the date on which you first complained to us, even if our own investigation has not yet concluded.
Generally, a complaint must be referred to the Legal Ombudsman:
- within six months of receiving our final written response to your complaint; and
- no more than one year from the date of the act or omission about which you are complaining; or
- no more than one year from the date when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
The Legal Ombudsman has discretion to accept complaints outside those time limits in certain circumstances.
Legal Ombudsman contact details
Telephone: 0300 555 0333
Relay UK: 18001 0300 555 0333
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Post: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH#
Website: Legal Ombudsman
Our final response will include the information you need if you wish to refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman.
Concerns about our professional conduct
The Legal Ombudsman deals primarily with complaints about the service you have received.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) regulates solicitors and law firms in England and Wales and may be able to assist where your concern relates to our professional conduct.
Examples may include concerns about:
- dishonesty or fraud;
- misuse or loss of client money;
- serious or repeated breaches of professional obligations;
- misleading the court or another person;
- taking unfair advantage of another person; or
- unlawful discrimination.
Further information about raising a concern is available from the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
You do not need to wait until our complaint’s procedure has concluded before reporting a serious conduct concern to the SRA here: https://contact.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor/
Data protection complaints – your right to complain
You have a right to complain to us about the way in which we have handled your personal information.
Under data protection law, you may make a complaint to us if you consider that we have infringed your data protection rights or have otherwise failed to comply with data protection law in relation to your personal information. This right applies whether you are a client, former client, prospective client, employee or other individual whose personal information we process.
You do not need to refer to any particular legislation, use legal terminology or identify a specific breach of data protection law in order to make a complaint. If you tell us that you are dissatisfied with the way in which we have handled your personal information, we will consider whether your concerns should be treated as a data protection complaint. The ICO expressly recognises that individuals do not need to use legal language when raising such a complaint.
A data protection complaint may include concerns about:
- how we have collected, obtained or used your personal information;
- whether we had an appropriate reason or lawful basis for using your information;
- whether we have been sufficiently clear or transparent about how your information would be used;
- information being disclosed to someone you believe should not have received it;
- the security of your information, including where you believe your information may have been lost, accessed, disclosed or otherwise compromised;
- information we hold about you being inaccurate or incomplete;
- how long we have retained your information;
- the way in which we have dealt with a subject access request or another request to exercise your data protection rights;
- our refusal, or alleged failure, to correct, erase or restrict the use of your information where you believe we should have done so;
- the use of your information for marketing or other purposes to which you have objected; or
- any other concern that we have not complied with our obligations under data protection law.
A data protection complaint is different from a request to exercise one of your data protection rights. For example, asking us for a copy of your personal information is a subject access request; complaining that we did not deal with that request properly may also amount to a data protection complaint. Where your correspondence contains both a rights request and a complaint, we will identify and deal with each appropriately.
You may make a data protection complaint yourself or, where appropriate, through someone acting on your behalf. Where another person is acting for you, we may ask for appropriate evidence of their authority before disclosing or discussing personal or confidential information.
How we will deal with a data protection complaint
We will make it straightforward for you to raise a data protection complaint and you may contact us using the methods set out in this Complaints Procedure.
The law requires us to acknowledge a data protection complaint within 30 days of receiving it. As part of our wider complaints procedure, however, our aim is to acknowledge all complaints within two working days.
Once we receive a data protection complaint, we will, without undue delay:
- consider the matters you have raised;
- make appropriate enquiries to investigate your concerns;
- obtain and consider relevant records and information;
- ask you for further information where reasonably necessary;
- keep you informed about the progress of our investigation; and
- inform you of the outcome of your complaint.
There is no single statutory period within which every data protection complaint must be concluded. We are, however, required to investigate and provide an outcome without undue delay, meaning without unjustifiable or excessive delay having regard to the circumstances of the complaint.
Our response will explain, in clear language, the matters we have investigated, our conclusions and any action we have taken or propose to take. Where we consider that we have complied with data protection law, we will explain the reasons for that conclusion.
If your complaint also indicates that a personal data breach may have occurred, we will separately assess the incident under our data breach procedure, including whether notification to the Information Commissioner’s Office or affected individuals is required.
Making a data protection complaint does not affect any of your other rights under data protection law or any other right or remedy that may be available to you.
Your right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office
In addition to your right to complain directly to us, you also have a separate right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you consider that the processing of your personal information infringes data protection law. The Data Protection Act 2018 expressly recognises the data subject’s right to complain to the Commissioner.
We would encourage you to raise your concern with us first so that we have an opportunity to investigate it and, where appropriate, put matters right. In most cases, the ICO will also expect an individual to have raised their concerns with the organisation concerned before asking the ICO to consider the matter.
However, your right to complain to the ICO is not dependent upon completing any optional internal review or appeal process operated by this firm. If you are dissatisfied with our response, or otherwise wish to raise the matter with the ICO, you are entitled to do so. The ICO confirms that individuals do not have to wait for an organisation to complete an optional review before making a complaint to it.
The Information Commissioner’s Office is the UK’s independent regulator for data protection and information rights.
Further information about making a complaint is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office.
ICO telephone: 0303 123 1113.
Alternative dispute resolution
Where our internal complaints procedure has been exhausted and we have been unable to settle a complaint, our final written response will also provide, where required, details of an approved Alternative Dispute Resolution body which would be competent to deal with the complaint and will state whether Catherine Higgins Law Limited agrees to use the scheme operated by that body.
This does not affect your right to refer an eligible complaint to the Legal Ombudsman.
Accessibility and reasonable adjustments
We want our complaints procedure to be accessible to everyone.
If you have a disability, communication need, language requirement or other circumstance which makes it difficult for you to use this procedure in its usual form, please tell us.
We will consider reasonable adjustments and alternative ways of communicating with you.
We will also take account of any vulnerability or other circumstances relevant to how your complaint should fairly be handled.
Confidentiality
Complaints will be handled sensitively, and information will only be shared with those who need it to investigate or respond to the complaint, or where disclosure is otherwise required or permitted by law or our professional obligations.
Where somebody complains on your behalf, we may require your authority before disclosing confidential or personal information to them.
Nothing in this procedure requires us to disclose information which we are legally or professionally prohibited from disclosing.
Learning from complaints
We regard complaints as an important source of information about the quality of our service.
Once a complaint has concluded, we may consider:
- what caused the complaint;
- whether anything could have been done differently;
- whether our procedures, systems or communications need to change;
- whether staff require further guidance, supervision or training;
- whether similar issues may affect other matters or clients; and
- whether any regulatory, data protection, risk or breach reporting requirements arise.
We record and monitor complaints so that themes and recurring issues can be identified and addressed.
Catherine Higgins Law Limited
45 Allerton Road
Woolton
Liverpool
Merseyside
L25 7RE
Telephone: 0151 428 2472
Email: enquiries@chigginslaw.co.uk
Catherine Higgins Law Limited is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. SRA number 598763.