Complaints

As required by The Solicitors’ Regulation Authority, we have a policy for dealing with Concerns and complaints from clients. We try to resolve concerns within the company  where possible to stop matters escalating to the Legal Ombudsman Service.

We all make mistakes and First North Law are honest and candid when a mistake has been made. Concerns are dealt with sympathetically and efficiently.

First North Law are committed to providing quality legal services and excellent client care at all times.  We value the feedback of our clients and it is essential to help us improve the services we provide. We welcome all comments from you to ensure we continuously improve our service delivery.

  1. Complaints/Concerns Procedure

If you are dissatisfied with our services or any advice provided, or would like to discuss or challenge a bill at any time, please put your concern in writing and send to our Director, Nigel McCloy (nigel.mccloy@firstnorthlaw.co.uk)

Your concern will initially be forwarded to the relevant fee- earner who has conduct of the matter and their respective supervisor for consideration. Please set out as clearly as you can the nature of your concern and how it has arisen. Please ensure your letter quotes the correct First North Law reference.

  • How your concern will be handled

We aim to resolve all areas of dissatisfaction quickly and smoothly.   You will receive an acknowledgement within 5 working days of receipt of your concern.

We will also:

  • Record your complaint
  • Ask you to confirm or explain any details which may be unclear or require further clarity
  • Advise you of the name of the person who will be dealing with your concern and
  • Notify you of what will happen next
  • Our Investigation

STAGE 1

1(i)    within 15 working days of receiving your concern (or the further details requested), we will ask the supervisor to review the file/s and undertake discussions with the conducting fee earner in order to address the issues that you raise. If your concern is about a Director, we will ask our Managing Director, Barry Khan (barry.khan@firstnorthlaw.co.uk) to undertake the review as appropriate.

1(ii)   within 20 working days of receiving your concern (or the further details requested), the supervisor or relevant Director will write to you with our views and how we aim to resolve your concerns.

STAGE 2

2        If you are still not satisfied, you can write to us and ask for the initial outcome to be escalated. You will need to write to us within 5 working days of receipt of outcome of Stage 1.

2(i).   We will arrange for a Director, who has not been directly involved in the matter, or the Managing Director, if your concern is about a Director to undertake a further review of your concerns. We will do this within 5 working days.

 2(ii)  The Director/Managing Director will write to you with our final views and how we aim to resolve your concerns within 5 working days of completing the required review as in 2(i) above.

If you are still not satisfied with the outcome you can contact The Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman generally requires that a company’s feedback procedure has been exhausted before it will consider a complaint.

Any complaint to The Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of the end of our feedback process. The contact details are:

Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ

Telephone:    0300 5550333

enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

 

  1. You can also refer matters to the SRA where you consider that a firm has breached an SRA Principle. Details of the SRA Principles can be found on the SRA website alongside details of how to report matters to the SRA