COMPLAINTS HANDLING POLICY

If you have a complaint, please contact us directly.

Our Complaints Policy

We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we need our clients to tell us about it. This will help improve our standards. Whenever possible, please raise any initial client care problems with the person acting on your case to give them the opportunity of resolving matters with you. Often, matters can be quickly resolved in this way.

If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you have received, or about the bill, please contact us by post to our office at Citibase, Gallery 11, 95 Ditchling Road, BN1 4ST, Brighton or send an email to jason@jlc-law.co.uk.

We have a procedure in place which details how we handle complaints as follows:

Our Procedures

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain the details set out. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint and enclose a copy of this procedure. You can expect to receive our response within 2 days of receipt of your complaint.
2. We will record your complaint in our central register and open a file for your complaint.
3. We will investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing your complaint to our Client Care Director, who will review your matter file and speak to the member of staff who acted for you.
4. We will then invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. We will do this within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
5. Within three days of that meeting we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions that have been agreed with you.
6. If you do not want a meeting, or it is not possible, you will be sent a detailed written reply to your complaint, including the suggestions for resolving the matter, within 21 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
7. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange to review the decision.
8. We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
9. If you are still not satisfied with our handling of your complaint you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. Contact details are as follows: 0300 555 0333, www.legalombudsman.org.uk, https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/how-to-complain

   
   

Normally, you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within twelve months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint and within the following timescales:

• One year from the date of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring, or
• One year from the date you should reasonably have known there were grounds for complaint.
• 6 months from receipt of the firm’s final written response to the complaint.

The Legal Ombudsman has a discretion to extend these time limits in exceptional circumstances. However the Legal Ombudsman will not accept complaints where the act or date of awareness was before 6th October 2010.

We hope that this does not become necessary and that we can resolve matters between ourselves. If we have to change any of the above timescales we will let you know and explain why.

The complaints procedure also includes complaints arising concerning our bill. There may also be a right to object to the bill by applying to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974; and that if all, or part, of a bill remains unpaid, the firm may be entitled to charge interest.