Our Complaints Policy
We are committed to providing a high quality legal service to all
our clients. If you think something has gone wrong, you should tell
us about it. This will help us to improve our standards.
Our Complaints Procedure
We will aim to deal with formal complaints in the following way
and according to the following timescales.
- If you have a complaint, please raise it with the Partner
responsible for your matter. If this presents a particular
difficulty for you, you may raise your complaint directly with our
Senior Partner, John Stephenson (by email at
johnstephenson@bdb-law.co.uk, by post to 50 Broadway London SW1H
0BL or by telephone on +44 (0)20 7783 3618).
- If the complaint cannot be dealt with there
and then, we will, within five working days, acknowledge it in
writing (which may be by e-mail) and let you know who will be
dealing with it. We may ask you to clarify your complaint or
explain it in more detail.
- Also within five working days of receiving your complaint or
your clarification or further explanation of it, we will start to
investigate your complaint. We may suggest a meeting with you.
- We will aim to complete our investigation and respond to your
complaint within 15 working days. This may include suggestions for
resolving the matter.
- If we need longer to complete our investigation and respond to
your complaint, we will contact you again within this timescale to
explain the position. If necessary, we will do this on a recurring
15 working day cycle until you have received our substantive
response.
- If you are not satisfied with our substantive response, you may
pursue your complaint further with us. We may then arrange for
someone else in the firm to carry out a review of your complaint
and our response. This review is likely to be carried out by the
Senior Partner, if the Senior Partner did not carry out the initial
investigation of your complaint.
- We will aim to carry out this further review and write to you
with our further response within 15 working days (or explain the
position to you, if this timescale cannot be met).
- If you are not satisfied with our further response, you may
pursue the matter further by raising it with the Legal Ombudsman
(LeO), whose contact details are: The Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806,
Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ. Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk |
Tel: 0300 555 0333.
- Any complaint to the LeO must usually be made within 6 months
of the date of our final response to your complaint but for further
information you should contact the LeO.
Bircham Dyson Bell LLP
October 2010