CLIENT COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE: QC LAW SOLICITORS
Our Client Care Procedure
QC Law Solicitors are committed to providing a quality legal service to all of our clients. If you feel unhappy with the way that we are handling matters, please do not hesitate to contact the Solicitor dealing with your matter as soon as practically possible. If you feel something has gone wrong, we need to be told. We understand that clients can feel anxious about legal matters, we can assure you that your concerns will be dealt with sympathetically and in confidence.
If you have a complaint about the legal services that you are being provided, we would appreciate it if you could write to us setting out your concerns and what you would ideally like us to do about them. You can write to us and send all correspondence to our address or via e-mail to riz@qc-law.co.uk, by writing to ourselves and communicating your concerns this gives us a clearer idea of the nature of your complaint, and the matters which will need to be looked into. We shall endeavor to respond to all complaints promptly and shall try our upmost to resolve any issues immediately. If for any reason, you do not feel comfortable about writing to us, please feel free to telephone Mr Rizwan Ahmed on 01484 818123, even if it is only by way of an initial call before writing to us.
What will happen next?
1. We will write acknowledging your letter or telephone call, asking you to confirm or elaborate upon any details that we need, and letting you know what steps we will be taking in to investigate the matter further, and how long this will take. Such investigations are normally completed within a further seven days, unless the matter is a complex one or we need to speak to a number of people on the matter, or those whom we need to speak to are unavailable. In any event if the investigations takes longer than 7 days we will notify you of the realistic timescale of our investigations.
2. We will record the details of your letter in our central register and open a separate file on the matter if we think it is something that cannot be resolved immediately, to ensure that it is not over-looked.
3. The Solicitor who acted for you will be asked for an internal response within 3 days of your contacting us, unless he or she is away from the office, and provide him with your matter file(s) and any other documentation relevant to your complaint. He will also speak with any other members of staff, or indeed outside of the Firm, where necessary, who may have a bearing on the matter.
4. Where it is felt that an initial meeting may be of mutual assistance, we will invite you to attend if it is convenient for you to do so. You may, in any event, request such a meeting yourself, if you feel your concerns could be better expressed in this way. Where a meeting has taken place, our investigations would normally be completed within 7 days of that meeting.
5. We will either write. to you at that stage, setting out our findings, or; in relatively
Complex matters, we will invite you to meet with us further to discuss and hopefully resolve your concerns.
6. Within 3 days of any meeting, we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions that were agreed.
7. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible to attend, we will send you a detailed reply to your complaint, including his suggestions for resolving the matter.
8. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, we will arrange for our findings and proposals to be independently reviewed. This will happen, depending upon the nature of your concerns, and at our discretion, in one of the following ways:-
a) We may ask our local Law Society or another local firm of solicitors to review your complaint.
b) We may invite you to agree to independent mediation.
We will let you know within 3 days of receipt of your letter, who is going to review the matter and how long this will take.
9. We will immediately let you know the outcome of any review as soon as we have been informed of their decision. At this time, we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
Legal Ombudsman & SRA
10. Should you remain dissatisfied despite our best endeavors, you then have a right to refer the matter to the Legal Ombudsman Service, We strongly advise that before taking your complaint to the legal ombudsman you have gone through QC Law’s Complaints procedure as outlined above, The Legal Ombudsman can be contacted at PO Box 15870, Birmingham B30 9EB, enquiries@legalombudsman .org.uk) or by telephone: 0300 555 0333. You have a period of 12 months from the cause of your complaint arising/ 6 months from the completion of our internal complaints procedures to refer the matter to them.
11. Should you remain dissatisfied despite our best endeavors, you then have a right to refer the matter to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), We strongly advise that before taking your complaint to the SRA you have gone through QC Law’s Complaints procedure as outlined above, Solicitors Regulation Authority can be contacted at, The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN or by telephone on 0370 6062555