COMPLAINTS

Complaints Handling Procedure

We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to our clients. We something goes wrong; we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to sort out any mistakes or misunderstandings, and to improve our standards.

If you have a complaint, please raise the problem with Mr. Tareq Chowdhury, the Principal of our firm who is responsible for your matter.

What will happen next?

We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint in writing within 3 days of receiving it.

We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve in reviewing your file and speaking to the member of staff who acted for you.

Within 14 days of sending, you the acknowledgement letter we will invite you to a meeting to discuss and resolve your complaint. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, we may instead offer you a chance to discuss the matter by telephone.

Within 3 days of meeting, or any telephone conversation we have with you instead of a meeting, we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions we have agreed with you.

In any case, we will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including our suggestions for resolving the matter, within 21 days of sending you the written acknowledgement of your complaint referred in paragraph 1 above.

At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange to review the decision.

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.

If we have to change any of these timescales, we will let you know and explain why.

If you are still not satisfied, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman.

How and when a complaint can be made to the legal ombudsman.

We aim to offer all our clients an efficient and effective service and we are confident that we will do so in this case. However, should there be any aspect of our service with which you are unhappy, please speak to Mr Chowdhury. If the problem cannot be resolved by him, or you do not wish to complain directly to the firm, if you are still not satisfied, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman, Po Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH about your complaint. Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of the date of our final written response on your complaint but for further information, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk. Note that the Legal Ombudsman service cannot be used by businesses or most other organisations unless they are below certain size limits. Further details are available from the Legal Ombudsman. A copy of our complaint’s handling procedure with a leaflet is provided to you on your first appointment with us. Should you require a further copy, please feel free to contact us.

Complaint to the Legal Ombudsman

A complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must be made:

• Within six months of receiving our final response to your complaint and
• No more than one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about; or
• No more than one year from the date when you should reasonably have known that there was cause for complaint.

Release of Information/documents to SRA

We have a professional duty to ensure that we do not release any information concerning your matter to a third party without your permission. However, there may be circumstances where the Solicitors Regulations Authority requires access to your file (s). The Law Society sometimes seek access to client files in order to monitor the quality of immigration advice being provide by solicitors. In this regard, we are required to obtain authorization from all clients to facilitate the monitoring process without being in breach of our duty of confidentiality. We trust that you have no objections to this and will provide us with the necessary authority.