Complaints Handling Procedure
Our Complaints Policy
We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards. The procedure outlined below also helps us to identify and address any systemic failings or areas of bad practice. Where appropriate, we will apologise and, in some cases, offer recompense to those who complain.
Our Complaints Procedure
A Concern or Formal Complaint can be brought by any client, potential client or someone authorised to do so on their behalf (including a personal representative or beneficiary of the estate of a deceased client).
A concern or complaint can be about our service or our charges.
What will happen next?
There are occasions where clients express Concerns that can quite properly be dealt with swiftly and resolved informally by the Principal, Mrs Karishma Dimple Dhaliah-Haulkory, with conduct of the matter.
The Principal will make a judgement as to whether they are able to swiftly and informally deal with the issue to the client’s satisfaction.
If you are unhappy, and wish to make a formal complaint, please contact the Principal with the details. The Principal send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within 3 days of us receiving the complaint, enclosing a copy of this procedure. Any Concern will be dealt with swiftly and in any event within 14 working days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
The Principal will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve reviewing your matter, your file and speak to the member of staff who acted for you. In order to deal with the Concern, it will usually be necessary for the Principal to undertake a brief investigation of the circumstances giving rise to the issue.
The Principal will then invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint within three days of the meeting, The Principal will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions she has agreed with you.
If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, the Principal will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including her suggestions for resolving the matter, within 21 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for the Principal, Mrs Dhaliah-Haulkory, to review her own decision.
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.
The Legal Ombudsman
If we are unable to satisfactorily resolve the Formal Complaint, then the client will be informed of their right to take the matter to the Legal Ombudsman. Before a client approaches the Ombudsman, they must usually have already made a Formal Complaint to us.
The Legal Ombudsman will not normally consider a complaint unless:
– It is made within 6 months of the client receiving a final response from us; and
– It is made in relation to an act or omission that took place after 5 October 2010 (or the client should reasonably have known about the cause of complaint after that date); and
– It is made no later than one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about or one year from when the client should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
The Legal Ombudsman can accept late complaints, and may do so if the Legal Ombudsman considers it is “fair and reasonable” to accept the late complaint for investigation.
A referral to the Legal Ombudsman is generally not available to the following clients: –
– Most businesses (unless they are defined as micro enterprises)
– Charities or clubs with an annual income of more £1m, or
– Trustees of trusts with asset value of more than £1m
Further details are available at: www.legalombudsman.org.uk/
The Legal Ombudsman can be contacted by:
Telephone: 0300 555 0333
E-mail: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Post: PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ
The Solicitors Regulation Authority
We are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). The SRA can help if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money, or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.
Further details, including how to report a solicitor or firm, are available at: www.sra.org.uk
The Solicitors Regulation Authority can be contacted by:
Telephone: 0370 606 2555
E-mail: contactcentre@sra.org.uk
Post: SRA, The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham B1 1RN
Alternative Dispute Resolution
The SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors 2019 requires that if a complaint has been brought and our complaints procedure has been exhausted without the complaint being settled, in addition to providing information about the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman (see above), the complainant is also provided with the name and website address of an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) approved body which would be competent to deal with the complaint; and confirmation as to whether the firm agrees to use the scheme operated by that body.