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.
- 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. Upon receipt of a complaint we will:
- 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
- Conduct our Investigation
STAGE 1
1(i) within 48 hours (working days considered) 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) we will notify YPO of the complaint and provide full details of the plans for resolve the complaint.
1 (iii) within 10 working days we will write to you with our views and how we aim to resolve your concerns and in doing so will deal with you fully, expeditiously and fairly.
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.
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.
The contact details are:
Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH
Telephone: 0300 5550333
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
- 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
Visit their website to see how you can raise your concerns with them: www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor/
Address: The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham B1 1RN
Phone: 0870 606 2555
Email: report@sra.org.uk