How to make a complaint

We are committed to providing a high-quality service and protecting your personal data. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to sort out any mistakes or misunderstandings, and to improve our standards.

If you have a complaint regarding any aspect of our services, our aim is to deal with your complaint promptly, openly and fairly.

Legal Services Complaints


If you have a complaint regarding the delivery of our legal services, please raise the problem with the lawyer responsible for your matter, or if you prefer, our Director & Head of Operations and Risk, Natasha Boyland, by email at n.boyland@woodstocklegalservices.co.uk, or by writing to us at Woodstock Legal Services, 11 Haven Road, Poole, Dorset, BH13 7LE. We will do our best to resolve any issues at that stage. Please see below for details of our complaints handling process.


Data Protection Complaints


If your complaint relates to the way we have handled your personal data, including a concern about a data breach, a data subject access request, or any other data protection matter, you can raise this with us using the complaints process below.


Data protection complaints can be sent to our Compliance team at compliance@woodstocklegalservices.co.uk. You can also contact our Director & Head of Operations and Risk, Natasha Boyland, whose contact details are set out above.


Whether your complaint relates to our legal service or the way that we have handled your personal data, if the matter cannot be resolved informally, and you would like to make a formal complaint, then please see our complaints process below.


  1. We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint in writing within three working days of receiving it, enclosing a copy of this process. We will also tell you who will be handling your complaint. We usually respond by email. If you do not receive an acknowledgement, please check in case our response has gone into your spam box
  2. We will then investigate your complaint. This will involve the person handling your complaint reviewing the relevant file or information and, where appropriate, speaking to the member of staff who acted for you/ or the person supervising the matter.
  3. Within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter, the person handling your complaint r will invite you to a meeting to discuss and resolve your complaint. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, we may instead offer you a chance to discuss the matter by telephone.
  4. Within three working days of the meeting, or any telephone conversation held instead of a meeting, we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions we have agreed with you.
  5. In any case, we will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including suggestions for resolving the matter, within 21 days of sending you the written acknowledgement of your complaint referred to in paragraph 1 above.
  6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again, and we will arrange for another Director or another appropriate person who has not been involved in the subject matter to independently review the decision, or an appropriate alternative, such as review by another local solicitor or mediation. If a third party is used, we will obtain your consent before sharing the file with them.
  7. We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
  8. If we have to change any of these timescales, we will let you know and explain why.


What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint?


If we are unable to resolve your complaint, then you can have the complaint independently looked at 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.


If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them.


Visit: Legal Ombudsman

Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9am to 5pm.

Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Legal Ombudsman

PO Box 6806

Wolverhampton

WV1 9WJ


If your complaint relates specifically to data protection (or to our legal services and data protection), you may be able to raise the matter with the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is the UK supervisory authority for data protection matters. This is separate from the Legal Ombudsman, which investigates complaints about service issues with lawyers.


If a complaint cannot be resolved, you may also be able to ask for it to be referred to a process of alternative dispute resolution using a certified provider. We are not required to agree to such a request. In any case, this is not available to businesses, only consumers. We will give you more information about that right if it becomes relevant.


The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about our professional conduct. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money, acting when you believed we had a conflict of interest, or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Further information about complaining to the SRA can be found here.