We are committed to high quality legal advice and client care and I am keen to resolve this matter as soon as possible and in order to do this, will follow our complaints handling procedure. This letter aims to ensure that you are fully aware of our procedure, the relevant timeframes and other avenues for redress that may be available to you should we be unable to resolve the matter ourselves. Rest assured that we will handle your complaint promptly, fairly and free of charge.
I am the person at this firm responsible for complaints handling and will oversee the process and be your primary contact.
However, it appears that your complaint may involve me the Practice Manager so Ronald Sempebwa will be the Solicitor with responsibility for handling your complaint. Rest assured that either of us has sufficient seniority in this practice and will consider your complaint carefully and with due diligence.
Our complaints procedure is as follows:
Step One:
If you have not already done so, please let me know the full nature of the problem. Ideally, I would prefer that your complaint be confirmed in writing in order that any scope for misunderstanding can be avoided. However, this is not obligatory and you are welcome to provide the details to me over the telephone or face to face. If you are setting out your concerns in writing then you can do this by emailing me at info@hillarycooperlaw.co.uk or writing to me at Hillary Cooper Law Ltd 60 St Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4JS.
Step Two:
I will write to you acknowledging your complaint within five working days. In this letter, I shall confirm what happens next.
Step Three:
I shall then investigate the matter by reviewing the matter file and speaking to the member of staff concerned within ten working days of acknowledging receipt of your complaint. If, for some reason, the matter cannot be investigated in this timeframe, then I will write to you notifying you of this together with the reason why and giving a revised timescale.
Once the investigation has been completed, if appropriate and necessary, I shall invite you to discuss the issue(s) you have raised and hopefully resolve the complaint. This could be a meeting, video conference call or telephone call and we can discuss your preference and what may be suitable at that time. This process of engagement will take place within ten working days of our concluding the investigation of the matter.
I shall write to you within five working days of any meeting or call to confirm our discussion and the solution agreed upon and/or any final redress that is offered.
Alternatively, if you do not want to or are unable to attend such a meeting or you would prefer to continue to correspond by letter or email (or if a meeting is not required), I will send you a detailed, written response, including my proposed solution, within fifteen working days* of my concluding my investigation.
Step Four:
If you are satisfied with my response following the above steps, that will be the end of the matter. However, if you are not satisfied, you should contact me again and I will review my decision or, depending on the circumstances, will arrange fora senior staff who is unconnected with the matter to review my decision. I will write to you within ten working days* of receiving your request with confirmation of the firm’s final position in relation to your complaint, outlining the reasons and any final redress that is offered.
Step Five (other avenues):
You must always try complaining to us first. In most cases you will not be able to take your complaint further without allowing us the opportunity to put things right.
Legal Ombudsman
We are permitted a period of eight weeks to consider the 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.
You are free to refer any complaint about our work, fees or level of service but there are some conditions and time limits. Please be aware that any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of you 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 from when you should have known about or become aware that there were grounds for complaint.
For further information, please contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or visit www.legalombudsman.org.uk. The Legal Ombudsman may be contacted at PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH.
Solicitors Regulation Authority
If you think a solicitor might be dishonest or you have concerns about their ethics or integrity or that they have breached professional rules, you also have the right to notify our regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). There are no time limits for making a report but there are limits on what the SRA will consider. Please note that the SRA is not able to deal with issues of poor service (complaints of this nature should instead be referred to the Legal Ombudsman). For further information about the SRA’s role, please contact the SRA or visit:
https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page#report.
Information Commissioners’ Office
To the extent that your complaint relates to a breach of Personal Data or it is evident that you are exercising your Rights as a Data Subject under data and information rights legislation (including, but not limited to the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018), there may be aspects of the complaint that we may have to deal with and/or respond to differently in light of our obligations as a Data Controller. It may be that aspects of your complaint will need to be passed to our Data Protection Officer Ms Joy Akah-Douglas to assess and respond to in accordance with our Data and Privacy Notice which is available on our website https://hillarycooperlaw.co.uk/privacy-policy. Our standard complaint handling timescales noted above may also not be appropriate and we will advise you if we have to escalate the timeframe for responding.
In the event of an allegation of a breach of Personal Data and/or any concern that our firm has not handled your personal information properly, we will consider whether a report needs to be made to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Not all breaches are reportable and we will advise you of the results of our assessment.
Should it be clear that you are exercising your rights under data and information rights legislation, please be assured that we will handle that aspect of your complaint in accordance with our regulatory obligations. For instance, we will aim to provide a full response to a Personal Data request within one month but if we cannot respond within that timescale, we will let you know when will be able to respond. You can find guidance on our obligations under data and information rights legislation on the ICO’s website (www.ico.org.uk) as well as information on their regulatory powers and the action they can take. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the ICO provided that you have first allowed us the opportunity to attempt to resolve it ourselves. For further information or to contact the ICO please visit www.ico.org.uk/concerns or call 0303 123 1113.
Your rights to refer the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman and SRA (as set out above) may still be available to you in addition to your Personal Data rights.
Alternative Complaints Bodies
Alternative complaints bodies (such as ProMediate, further details of which can be found at www.promediate.co.uk) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both parties agree to use such a scheme. However, we need to advise you that we do not agree to use an additional complaints scheme in addition to or instead of the redress offered by the Legal Ombudsman.
Additional comments
I hope that this letter provides assurance to you that we will handle your complaint appropriately and diligently.
Should you have any further queries at this time or if anything is unclear, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours sincerely