We are committed to providing a high-quality service to all of our clients. We take very seriously all expressions of dissatisfaction from our clients. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards. We deal with all complaints fairly, promptly and at no extra cost to you. If you have difficulty bringing your complaint to us, let us know so that we can help you.
If you wish to express any concerns, you can do so by telephone, email or by letter. Our contact details are below. We would prefer you to write to us with full details of your complaint so that we have a good understanding of the issues being highlighted. If you have trouble with this, please let us know so that we can help you.
You should know who is dealing with your matter, this will be set out in the first letter that we sent to you (this is called our Client Care Letter). This also sets out who their supervisor is. You can contact them initially, and they will do their best to resolve the issue for you.
If your lawyer or their supervisor are not able to resolve the matter for you, or if you would prefer, you can raise your complaint with Samantha Wright who is the Complaints Partner.
Samantha Wright, Brindley Twist Tafft & James Solicitors, Lowick Gate, Siskin Drive, Coventry, CV3 4FJ, Telephone 02476 531532, email samantha.wright@bttj.com
– Informal verbal complaints should be addressed to your lawyer in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with their proposals, then the matter should be taken up with the Supervisor responsible for their work.
-If the matter cannot be resolved informally with your lawyer or their supervisor, it would assist investigations if you were to fully detail your concerns in writing so there is less room for misunderstanding your concerns and requirements.
-The complaint will then be dealt with by the Complaints Partner, Samantha Wright. It is likely that Samantha Wright will be assisted with the investigation of your complaint by Susan Faulkner who is the firm’s Head of Risk and Compliance and/or the Head of the Department you are or have been dealing with. These people form our Compliance Team and you may be contacted by any or all of them during the investigation into the complaint.
-We will have 8 weeks from the date that we receive your formal complaint to try to resolve it to your satisfaction. In order to keep within this timeframe, we intend to carry out the following:
-We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 7 days of receiving it.
-A full reply will be sent as soon as the matter has been investigated. We will always endeavour to provide a full response within 28 days. If that is not possible, an interim response will be given explaining why it is not possible to meet this deadline, when we expect our investigations to be completed and a response finalised.
-Once we have prepared our final response, we will let you know and tell you what you can do if you still do not consider that the complaint has been resolved. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman who will review your complaint for free. The Legal Ombudsman’s details can be found below. You may also refer your complaint to an Alternative Dispute Resolution Scheme Provider (ADR). We will send you a final letter informing you of this. See more infoirmation regarding the ADR scheme below.
All complaints (written or verbal) are recorded and logged centrally. Where necessary, we will implement corrective action in response to individual complaints and improvement measures to prevent adverse trends and correct recurring problems. In this manner, we aim to constantly improve the service we provide.
The Legal Ombudsman is the independent body established to deal with complaints in the legal sector. Before they will consider your complaint, they will generally require you to use the firm’s complaints procedure (outlined above) first and until it has been exhausted, or 8 weeks have passed since you made the complaint (and you have had no response from the firm). If the Legal Ombudsman is satisfied that our proposals for resolving your complaint are reasonable, they may decline to investigate the complaint further.
If you want to contact the Legal Ombudsman, their contact details are as follows:
Call: 0300 555 0333. Address: Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ. Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Further information can be found on the Legal Ombudsman website at www.legalombudsman.org.uk
You will need to bring your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within 6 months of receiving a final response from us about your complaint and 6 years from the date of the act or omission giving rise to the complaint or alternatively 3 years from the date you should reasonable have known there are grounds for a complaint.
If you are concerned about our behaviour, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) may be able to help you. This would be for things like dishonesty, fraud, taking or losing your money, or treating you unfairly because of your disability, age or other personal characteristic.
The SRA can be contacted by emailing them at report@sra.org.uk or writing to them at The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN.
Alternative complaints bodies such as ProMediate (www.promediate.co.uk) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services if you and our firm want to use them to resolve your compliant. However, we do not currently agree to use this ADR service due to the availability of the Legal Ombudsman Service. You should be aware that we are obliged to comply with the Legal Ombudsman as a result of our regulatory Code of Conducts.
