Our Complaints procedure
We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to our clients. 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.
First please raise your concern with the fee-earner dealing with the matter for you. If the problem is resolved at that stage then unless you request otherwise we will not implement any further stages in our formal complaints procedure.
The aim of the formal complaints process is to resolve a problem to the satisfaction of the person making the complaint.
If that does not resolve the problem or you would prefer not to talk to the fee-earner then please contact Richard Barr. You may contact Richard by email rbarr@bbc-law.co.uk or in writing at 30 Old Steine Brighton BN1 1FL.
If you have special needs which we should take into account due to language or disability, please let Richard know.
- We receive your complaint
- We acknowledge your complaint in writing and if not already done so send you a copy of our
complaints procedure
- We investigate and write back to you
- If you’re not satisfied, you can request a review
- We review your complaint and the initial response and write back to you with our final
response
- If you’re still not satisfied you contact the Legal Ombudsman
If you have not already done so, we will ask you to put your complaint in writing so that we can be sure about the matters with which you are unhappy. We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint in writing within two working days of receiving it.
Our letter of acknowledgment will contain a time limit telling you by what date we will respond in detail.
After we send out our letter of acknowledgment, we will then start to investigate your complaint, which is likely to involve both the fee-earner who acted for you and Richard reviewing your file and speaking to any other member of staff who acted for you and should normally be completed within 21 working days, but if the complaint involves complicated issues or lengthy investigation we may need more time than this. We will tell you this in our letter of acknowledgment.
If it is considered that a meeting at this stage would be helpful, we will invite you to meet a Director to discuss and, we hope, resolve your complaint. If we hold a meeting with you, we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions we have agreed with you within three days of the meeting or telephone call.
Where a meeting is not held, we will send you a detailed reply to your complaint, including our suggestions for resolving the matter.
If you are still not satisfied after this initial response, you should contact us again and we will arrange for another Director or someone unconnected with the matter at the firm to review the decision.
We will write to you within 21 working days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final response on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.
In nearly all cases we expect to resolve matters and the fee earner will continue with the file. In some circumstances, if the solicitor/client relationship has broken down completely, it may be better for another fee earner to take the file over and we will talk to you about this.
If you do not agree with the outcome of our complaints process, you can then complain to the Legal Ombudsman.
We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If for any reason we are unable to resolve the problem between us within that timeframe, then you may ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. The Legal Ombudsman may be contacted at Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH, or by email at service.complaints@legalombudsman.org.uk.
Please be aware that any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of your having received a final written response from us about your complaint.
Complaints to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within one year of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring; or within one year from when you should have known about or become aware that there were grounds for complaint.
There are limits to the type of complaints the Legal Ombudsman is able to consider.
For further information, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
You may also have a right to object to a bill raised by this firm by applying to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974.
In case you mislay this copy of our Complaints Procedure you can always find a copy on our website at www.bbc-law.co.uk/complaints
