Home / Complaints

Our aim is to ensure that everyone who receives a service from us has a positive experience. With all our best intentions, we know you might wish to raise a query or complaint.

It is always best to speak directly with your solicitor first to see if they can help resolve your query, but if not then there are a few options to help you.

Lime Solicitors is a trading name of Shakespeare Martineau LLP.

I need help or can’t get hold of my solicitor

We are sorry that you can’t get hold of your solicitor, we realise how frustrating this must be.

Please call our client care team on 0800 640 8513 and we will do our best to make sure you can speak to someone who is working on your case as soon as possible. Alternatively you can contact us through our web form and we will be in touch as soon as possible.

How to make a complaint

What you need to do

If you would like to make a formal complaint please contact the Complaints Team at complaintsteam@shma.co.uk, by e-mail, detailing the reasons for your dissatisfaction with our service or by telephone on 0800 640 8513. We will not charge you for dealing with your complaint. Making a complaint will not affect how we handle your case.

Our process and what happens next
  1. We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days of it being received.
  2. Once we have received all the relevant information, we will undertake a full review of your file and discuss your complaint with the acting solicitor or Partner.
  3. We will keep you updated as to the progress of our investigation and we will aim to provide you with a final response to your complaint within 6 – 8 weeks of receipt.
  4. If you are concerned about our behaviour, the SRA can help. You can raise your concerns with them at www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page

What to do if you’re not satisfied with our final response

If you are not satisfied with our final response, you can contact us with any additional information which you think may be helpful to our investigation, and we will undertake a further review. We will aim to provide a response to this within 14 days of receipt. If we are unable to reach a satisfactory conclusion we will write to you again and confirm our firm’s final position. 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.

The Legal Ombudsman can be contacted by the following means:

Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Phone: 0300 5550 333 (9am to 5pm)
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Post: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH

Last revised: 25 Jan 2024