Complaints

Barwells Complaints Policy & Procedure

Our complaints policy

Barwells is committed to high quality legal advice and client care.  If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you have received or about the bill, please contact our Client Care Partner, Lauren Chambers on 01273 582271 / lauren.chambers@barwells.com or by post to 10 Sutton Park Road, Seaford, East Sussex, BN25 1RB.  In her absence please contact Elisabeth Squires  on 01323 899331 / elisabeth.squires@barwells.com or by post to 10 Sutton Park Road, Seaford, East Sussex, BN25 1RB.  We have a procedure in place which details how we handle complaints which is available upon request.  We have eight weeks to consider your complaint.  If we have not resolved it within this time you may complain to the Legal Ombudsman.

If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint.  Normally, you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint or within one year of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring (or if outside of this period, within one year of when you should reasonably have been aware of it).

Our complaints procedure

Our complaints procedure operates on three levels.  Firstly, we find that most complaints can be dealt with in conjunction with the legal practitioner concerned.  If our client is still unhappy with this resolution then the matter will be referred to the Head of the particular Department involved in your complaint.

Timescales for responses may be affected by the complexity of the case and the subsequent time required for investigation and response.  We will advise you of any issues at the time our investigation is commenced.

What will happen next?

1. Your complaint has been recorded in our central register and a file has been opened.  You have received a copy of this guidance note to advise you of what will happen from now on.

2. We will send out a letter to you acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain the details set out.  You will also be advised of the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint.  You can expect to receive our letter within five working days of us receiving your complaint.

3. We will respond to your reply to our acknowledgement letter and confirm what will happen next. You can expect to hear from us within ten working days of your reply.

4. We will then start to investigate your complaint. This may involve one of the following steps:

• we may ask the member of staff who acted for you or their Head of Department to reply to your complaint within ten working days or: –
• the Client Care Partner may examine your reply and the information in your file. We may then require more information from within the firm. This will take up to fifteen working days from the Client Care Partner receiving the reply and the file.

5 . We will send a detailed reply to your complaint or, if appropriate, we will invite you to meet a partner to discuss the matter.  This reply will include our suggestions for resolving the matter.

6. If a meeting takes place, we will write to you to confirm what took place and any suggestions we have agreed with you.

7. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied you can write to us again. We will then arrange to review our decision. This will happen in one of the following ways: –

• the person responding will review his or her own decision within ten working days or
• we will arrange for someone in the firm who has not been involved in your complaint to review it. He or she will do this within twenty working days or

8. We will let you know the result of the review within twenty working days of the end of the review. At this time we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons. We will also give you the name and address of the Legal Ombudsman. If you are still not satisfied, you can contact them about your complaint within six months.

The Legal Ombudsman can be contacted by phone on 0300 555 0333, by post at Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH or through their website www.legalombudsman.co.uk

9. The Legal Ombudsman will generally expect us to complete our enquiry into your complaint within eight weeks or acknowledgement of it. You have the right to apply to the Ombudsman if the complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within that period.

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