VM Family Law – Complaints Handling Policy
Complaints Policy
We value your business and do not wish you to have any reason to be unhappy with us. We are confident of providing a high quality service. It is therefore important that you raise any concerns you may have with us immediately so that we may address them. This will help us to improve our standards.
Our Complaints Procedure
If you are dissatisfied with the service received or if you are dissatisfied with regard to a charge on a bill received, please first contact the member of team who is dealing with your matter and they will try to resolve your concerns informally. Our aim will always be to deal with your concerns as quickly as possible and without recourse to any formal complaints procedure, if that is possible.
If it is clear that you remain dissatisfied, the member of team will inform you of the existence of our formal complaints procedure by sending you a copy of this procedure.
Stage 1
You should write to our complaints handler who is Amanda Rimmer and clearly mark your letter “formal complaint”. Amanda is a Director and Senior Solicitor. Her email address is mandy@vmfl.co.uk. Alternatively, you may wish to use the attached “client complaint form”. Please outline the course of your dissatisfaction and if possible, the action you would like us to take in order to remedy that dissatisfaction.
Stage 2
We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 5 working days and inform you of the name of the person who is dealing with your complaint. In order to obtain an independent and objective view, we may outsource Stage 2 to an independent complaints handler. Your complaint will be acknowledged by them within 5 working days of receipt and a thorough investigation undertaken within 28 days of identifying and agreeing your heads of complaints with you. We will record your complaint in our central register which is reviewed regularly by the firm.
Stage 3
The person investigating the complaint will have full access to all the information and personnel that they require to investigate your complaint properly. They may contact you directly to discuss and confirm your heads of complaints and request any further information from you to assists the investigation.
We will ask the person investigating the complaint to recommend the action which they believe would be recommended by the Legal Ombudsman if the complaint was referred to their office.
Stage 4
The person investigating your complaint will provide you with a detailed assessment report together with their recommendations to resolve the complaint, if any, a copy of which will be first forwarded to our principal for review. If the complaint is outsourced, we will generally follow their recommendations made but if we think they are not appropriate, we will explain our reasons to you.
We have 8 weeks from the date we receive your complaint to fully investigate and provide our final response to you.
If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will contact you to explain why.
You will not be charged for our time spent dealing with a complaint internally.
Stage 5
If you are still not satisfied, the first step is for you to contact the Legal Ombudsman by one of the following methods:-
Telephone : 03005550333
Overseas : +44 122453050
Email : enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
In writing : PO Box 6167 Slough, SL1 0EH
The Ombudsman services is only available to members of the public, very small businesses, charities, clubs and trusts. If you are unclear about your position, then you should contact the Legal Ombudsman direct to clarify whether or not they can deal with your complaint. Alternatively, please refer to the Legal Ombudsman Scheme Rules which are available by clicking on the following link :
https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/media/oughytel/scheme-rules-april-23-final.pdf
You have the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman at the conclusion of our complaints process provided you do so within 6 months of the date of our final written response.
The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within 1 year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within 1 year of you realising there was a concern.
Alternate complaints bodies such as ProMediate (http://www.promediate.co.uk/) exist, which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should you and our firm wish to use such a scheme. VM Family law does not agree to use ProMediate as we prefer the Legal Ombudsman’s clear adjudication process.
Complaints about fees
If you are dissatisfied with our bill you have the right to apply to the High Court for an assessment of our charges by an Officer of the Court under ss.70, 71 and 72 of the Solicitors Act 1974 particularly given that all bills come with a detailed breakdown of the work carried out. We hope that before making such an application you would first use our complaints procedure explained above.
Complaints about misconduct
If you have any concerns about any misconduct or breach of the SRA Code of Conduct by our firm such as taking or losing your money, dishonesty or discrimination, you can also report the matter to our regulatory body, the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Their details are :
The Solicitors Regulation Authority
The Cube
Wharfside Street
Birmingham B1 1RN
03706062555
http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page