Playbook, law firm
Routing a complaint into the firm's own procedure, quickly
Complaints reach whatever channel is nearest, and a widget on the contact page is nearer than a letter to the client care partner. Regulators in most jurisdictions require a firm to publish a complaints route and to respond within a defined period, so the destination already exists and is already written down. The only thing that can go wrong here is the assistant trying to be helpful about the substance, which turns a procedural moment into an adversarial one.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for complaints holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Solicitors' regulators in most jurisdictions require a published procedure, a named recipient and a response period, so unlike most trades the correct destination is prescribed rather than chosen.
- A complaint here usually arrives disguised as a question about a bill or about why nobody has called back, so the assistant has to recognise it before the word complaint appears.
- The substance almost always concerns a live matter, which the assistant may not discuss at all, so it can acknowledge the complaint without being able to acknowledge a single fact in it.
- Any sentence that reads as the firm defending itself becomes part of the complaint, and in this trade the complaint may travel onwards to an ombudsman or the regulator with that sentence attached.
How it arrives
- i want to complain about my solicitor
- nobody has returned my calls for three weeks
- why has my bill gone up without anyone telling me
- how do i escalate this above the fee earner
- who is your client care partner
- can i take this to the ombudsman
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Your published complaints procedure | Who a complaint goes to, in what form, what happens at each stage, and the period within which the firm must respond. This is already a regulatory publication in most markets, so index the version you actually publish rather than an internal summary of it. |
|---|---|
| The external route after the firm's own process | The ombudsman or complaints body available in your jurisdiction, when a client may go there, and any time limit that applies. Withholding this reads as obstruction, and it is usually already required to appear in your engagement terms. |
| Your service standards on contact and updates | How quickly calls and emails are returned, how often a client is updated on a matter, and who to contact when the fee earner is unavailable. A large share of complaints are about silence, and being able to state the standard turns some of them into a routing problem instead. |
| How billing queries are handled separately | Who reviews a bill, what a client may ask for, and the route for challenging costs where your jurisdiction provides one. Fee disputes and service complaints are handled differently in most firms and conflating them wastes a stage. |
The reply
I am sorry, and I want to get this to the right person rather than answer it myself. Complaints go to our client care partner in writing, and we respond within the period set out in our complaints procedure, which I can point you to. I cannot discuss anything about your matter here, but if you leave your name, your email and a short summary I will make sure it reaches them today, and you will get an acknowledgement from a person.
It apologises for the experience without conceding a fact, which is the only defensible position for something that cannot see the file. It names the destination and the response period, because a complainant's real fear is that the message vanishes. The promise it makes is about routing rather than outcome, which is the only promise the assistant is in a position to keep.
Where it stops
The trigger. Any message expressing dissatisfaction with the firm's service, its bill or its handling of a matter, whether or not the word complaint is used.
I am sorry this has happened. This needs to go into our complaints procedure rather than stay in a chat, so leave your name, email and a short summary and it will reach our client care partner today.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never explain or justify why a fee earner has not been in touch.
- Never say whether the bill looks correct, or that costs on a matter like this are normal.
- Never suggest the client raises it informally with the fee earner first, when your published procedure says otherwise.
- Never discourage or delay mention of the ombudsman route where your jurisdiction provides one.
Questions
- Should the assistant recognise complaints that are not worded as complaints?
- It should, and the way to make that happen is in the material. Index the complaints procedure alongside your service standards on contact and updates, so a message about nobody ringing back matches the procedural document rather than a services page.
- Is there a risk it makes the complaint worse?
- The risk is a reply that argues. Set the caution level so an unmatched question returns your refusal rather than the nearest page, and write the refusal for a complainant rather than for a prospect, since that is who will meet it at the worst moment.
- Does a complaint left in a chat count as received?
- That is a question for your own procedure and your regulator's rules, and it is one worth settling before the widget goes live. Whatever the answer, the handover collects the details and sends them to a nominated address and stores them, so a complaint does not sit only in a chat log.
Keep reading
- Everything for a law firmFee structures, consultation terms and onboarding checks are answerable. Anything applied to a caller's own facts is legal advice.
- Handling complaints in generalThe job is to route, not to resolve. Acknowledge without conceding, name the escalation route, and get it to a person fast.
- The line where a legal enquiry stops being a conversationPrivilege does not attach to a widget and a wrong steer can cost a claim. The trigger is anybody describing their own legal situation.
- A client is looking at our bill and wants to know whyTime units, the narrative, disbursements sitting apart from the fee, and why none of it can be checked against a live matter.
- Delete everything you hold about me, sent to a solicitors' firmRetention periods, conflict records and identity evidence outlive a matter, so this is the one request a firm cannot simply agree to.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.