Delivering results
Complaints Procedure
Brahams Dutt Badrick French LLP is committed to high quality legal advice and client care. If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you have received or about the bill, please contact Nick Wilcox who is a Partner and acts as our Complaints Partner on NickWilcox@bdbf.co.uk, or 020 3828 0356 or by post to our office.
We hope that you will not need to complain about our service and wish to work with you throughout our relationship to ensure that your aims are met. We value all feedback, positive and otherwise, so we take your comments and concerns raised with us very seriously.
We will never charge you for dealing with a complaint.
When we receive your complaint, we will acknowledge it within 2 working days and send you a copy of this procedure.
We will begin our internal investigation into your complaint and may invite you to a meeting if we feel it will be beneficial. We will do this within 21 days of receipt of your complaint. You can also request a meeting with us.
Following our meeting, or if a meeting is not appropriate or you do not wish one to take place, we will write to you with the outcome of our internal investigation.
We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time you may have the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman. If you are a consumer, you will automatically be eligible for the Legal Ombudsman scheme as are most small businesses or organisations (such as a Trust or Charity) which through their limited turnover qualify for access to the Legal Ombudsman scheme. The Legal Ombudsman may help you assess if you qualify or not.
If you are a larger business and excluded by the Legal Ombudsman from using its service, we will try and find an alternative method to assist us in resolving your concerns.
Before accepting a complaint for investigation the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. Please be assured we will try and resolve any issues with you.
If we have to revise any of the above timescales, we will let you know.
If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint we can arrange for another solicitor, who has not been involved in the matter or in the investigation of your complaint, to consider your complaint again as an appeal mechanism before going to the Legal Ombudsman. We offer this as we are committed to resolving any concerns you may raise
If you wish to raise your matter with the Legal Ombudsman, you have six months (subject to some qualifications below) from the date of our final response in which to complain to the Legal Ombudsman:
Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6806
Wolverhampton
WV1 9WJ
Telephone: 0300 555 0333 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
The Legal Ombudsman operates the following time limits:
- Within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint
And;
- No more than six years from the date of act/omission; or
- No more than three years from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
Alternative complaints bodies (such as Pro Mediate UK Limited) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme. We may agree to use Pro Mediate UK Limited in appropriate circumstances such as when a business or organisation is not eligible due to its turnover to access the Legal Ombudsman scheme and when there is a realistic prospect it will assist resolving matters.
In the highly unlikely event your complaint is not about our service but is about our conduct you should contact Nick Wilcox our Compliance Officer for Legal Practice who would deal with any such issues under the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) scheme. Please note the SRA deals with conduct issues rather than the Legal Ombudsman which deals with service issues. Alternatively, you may visit the SRA’s website to see how you can raise concerns with them.
Finally, please be assured if you complain to us, we will try and resolve matters if we can.
