Complaints
Complaints policy
We value your business and do not wish you to have any reason to be unhappy with us. We are confident of providing a high-quality service. It is therefore important that you raise any concerns you may have with us immediately so that we may address them. This will help us to improve our standards.
Our complaints procedure
If you are dissatisfied with the service received or if you are dissatisfied about a charge on a bill received, please first contact the member of staff who is dealing with your matter and they will try to resolve your concerns informally. Our aim will always be to deal with your concerns as quickly as possible and without recourse to any formal complaint procedure, if that is possible.
If you remain dissatisfied, the member of staff will inform you of the existence of our formal complaints procedure by sending you a copy of this procedure.
Stage 1
In the first instance, please raise your concerns directly with the person dealing with your case or transaction by email, post or over the phone.
If you feel that it is too delicate for you to raise this directly with them, or they have not addressed all your concerns to your satisfaction, you should raise your concerns with their manager. Their manager’s name will be mentioned in our engagement letter to you, sent at the beginning of your case or transaction. Alternatively, you may simply ask your lawyer for their manager’s name or just ring us to request that information.
If neither your lawyer nor their manager can resolve your concerns to your satisfaction, your complaint will reach the second stage
Stage 2
You may progress your complaint to our firm’s Managing Partner, who will either personally investigate your complaint or may at his discretion refer it to another senior partner within our firm, for example to our Compliance Officer for Legal Practice or to a partner specialising in the area of law which is the subject of complaint.
When you do so, please set out as much detail as possible regarding your complaint. You may find the template letter on the Legal Ombudsman’s website useful (http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/). We prefer to receive your complaint by post or email as we can then make sure we reply to all the points you raise:
You should contact Mr ISHRAT NOORI, our Complaints Handling Director in writing either by email at info@issatsolicitors.co.uk or by post at 87 CHANCERY LANE, LONDON WC2A 1ET. Please outline the cause of your dissatisfaction and if possible, the action you would like us to take to remedy that dissatisfaction.
Stage 3
We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within ten working days and inform you of the name of the person who is dealing with your complaint. In order to obtain an independent and objective view, we may outsource stage 2 to an independent complaint’s handler. Your complaint will be acknowledged by them within 5 working days and a thorough investigation undertaken. We will record your complaint in our central register which is reviewed regularly by the firm.
The person investigating the complaint will have full access to all the information and personnel that they require to investigate your complaint properly. They may contact you directly to discuss and confirm your heads of complaints and request any further information from you to assist the investigation.
We will ask the person investigating the complaint to recommend the action which they believe would be recommended by the Legal Ombudsman if the complaint was referred to their office.
Stage 4
The person investigating your complaint will provide you with a detailed assessment report together with their recommendations to resolve the complaint, if any, a copy of which will be first forwarded to our directors for review. If the complaint is outsourced, we will generally follow their recommendations made but if we think they are not appropriate we will explain our reasons to you.
We have 8 weeks from the date we receive your complaint to fully investigate and provide our final response to you.
If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will contact you to explain why.
You will not be charged for our time spent dealing with a complaint internally.
Stage 5
If you are still not satisfied, the next step is for you to contact the Legal Ombudsman by one of the following methods:
Telephone : 0300 555 0333
Overseas: +44 12 245 3050
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
In writing : PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ
www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Normally, you will need to bring complain to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complain or six years of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring (if outside this period, within three years of when you should reasonably have been aware of it).
The Legal Ombudsman only deals with complaints from the following clients:
- An individual/consumer;
- A business/enterprise with less than ten employees and turnover or assets not exceeding €2 million;
- A charity with a net annual income of less than £1 million;
- A club/association/organisation whose affairs are managed by its members/a committee and which has a net annual income of less than £1 million;
- A trustee of a trust that had an asset value of less than £1 million;
- A personal representative or beneficiary of the estate of a person who, before they died, had not referred the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman.
More information about how the Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints can be found at www.legalombudsman.org.uk
If you are not, you should be aware that you can only obtain redress by using our Complaints handling Procedure or by mediation or arbitration or by taking action through the Courts.
Complaints About Fees
If you are dissatisfied with our bill, you have the right to apply to the High Court for an assessment of our charges by an Officer of the Court under ss. 70, 71 and 72 of the Solicitors Act 1974. We hope that before making such an application you would first use our complaints procedure explained above.
Complaints About Misconduct
If you have any concerns about any misconduct or breach of the SRA Code of Conduct by our firm such as taking or losing your money, dishonesty or discrimination, you can also report the matter to our regulatory body, the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Their details are:
The Solicitors Regulation Authority
The Cube
Wharfside Street
Birmingham
B1 1RN
0370 606 2555 http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page