Complaints Policy

We are committed to providing a high quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong and our service does not meet your expectations, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to make changes to improve our standards and to learn from the comments you make.

If you have a complaint about the service we have provided please follow the procedure below:

Step One:

Please try and resolve your complaint by speaking with the Legal Advisor assigned to work for you.

Step Two:

If you are not satisfied with the way he/she deals with your complaint, please contact the Head of Department/ Office named in your client care letter.

Step Three:

If you then feel that we have still not dealt with your complaint satisfactorily, please write to the Client Care Partner who will obtain your file and review the complaint and the response given. The Client Care Partner is Fiona Moffat who can be contacted at: St Michaels, Queen Street, Derby, DE1 3SU or email f.moffat@timms-law.com or complaints@timms-law.com.

At Steps Two and Three, the following timetable will apply:

1. We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 7 days of receiving it.
2. We will investigate your complaint within 28 days of receiving it. This will involve the response of the person who acted for you and reviewing the file. We may also want to discuss the complaint with you either on the telephone or at a meeting. We will write to you with a detailed response to your complaint and with any suggestions we have for resolving it to our mutual satisfaction.
3. If we do not hear from you with 28 days, we will assume that you are happy with the outcome of our investigations.

We will make every effort to comply with these timescales. If there are circumstances which will mean it is difficult for us to comply with them, eg illness or holiday of key individuals, we will write to tell you.

Legal Ombudsman

If, after that, you are not satisfied with the way we have handled your complaint, you may be able to ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. This applies if you are an individual, a business with fewer than 10 employees, a charity or trust with a net income of less than £1m, or if you fall within certain other categories (you can find out more from the Legal Ombudsman).

Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, you must take your complaint to them within 6 months of receiving a final response to your complaint from us and;

• no more than 6 years from the date of the act (or failure to act); or
• no more than 3 years from when you should have known about the complaint.

If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them using the details below:.

Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9am and 5pm
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.co.uk
Write: legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ

Solicitors Regulation Authority

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) can also help if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or another characteristic. You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Other

If we are not able to settle your complaint, and it relates to a contract we entered into with you online or by other electronic means, you may be able to send your complaint to a certified alternative dispute resolution (ADR) provider in the UK via the ‘ODR platform’.

The ODR platform, which is available for disputes in the UK and abroad, is an intercative website for consumers and traders  who want to sort out disputes relating to online contracts for goods and services.

However, we believe the Legal Ombudsman’s scheme is the most suitable and so would not agree to use another complaints body.

 

Update December 2020