Our Complaints Procedure

We are committed to providing high-quality legal services to all our clients. If something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us improve our standards.

If you have a complaint, please contact us with the details. You can reach us by email on info2@tbplaw.co.uk, or in writing, by telephone or in person at any of our offices.

What happens next?

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint. This may ask you to confirm or explain the details as set out in that letter. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint. You can expect to receive our letter within ten working days of us receiving your complaint.

2. We will record your complaint separately from your matter and it will be filed separately. We will do this within ten working days of receiving your complaint.

3. We will acknowledge your reply to our acknowledgement letter (if appropriate) and confirm what will happen next. You can expect to hear from us within ten working days of us receiving your reply. We may have further questions as a result of your reply, but we will always attempt to respond to your communications within ten working days.

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

• We may ask the member of staff who acted for you to reply to your complaint usually within ten working days of the letter sent in point 3 above.

• If Mr Byrne acted for you, he will consider your complaint again. He will then send you his detailed reply or invite you to a meeting to discuss the matter. He will usually do this within thirty days.

• We may examine the reply and the information in your complaint file. We may then ask for more information. This will take up to ten days from receiving the reply and the file. If the matter is particularly complex, it may take longer but we will advise you of this.

• If the matter is complex, involves multiple matters or entails reviewing multiple folders or files, we will advise you of the estimated time that it will take to investigate your complaint. There may be multiple requests of you throughout this investigation for clarification or information.

5. We may invite you to meet Mr Byrne to discuss and, it is hoped, resolve your complaint.

6. Within ten working days of any meeting, we will write to you to confirm what took place and any suggestions we have agreed with you. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, we will send you a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include our suggestions for resolving the matter. This will happen within ten working days of us completing the investigation.

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

• Mr Byrne will review his own decision within ten working days.

• We will ask our local Law Society or another firm of solicitors to review your complaint within ten working days. We will let you know how long this process will take.

• We will invite you to agree to independent mediation. We will let you know how long this process will take.

8. We will let you know the result of the review within ten 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. If you are still not satisfied, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman at P O Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ about your complaint.  Any complaint to the Legal Complaints Service must usually be made within six months of the date of our final decision on your complaint but for further information, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman.  If we must change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.

Contacting the Legal Ombudsman

If your complaint has not been resolved within 8 weeks or you are still not satisfied, you can contact the Legal Ombudsman at PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ about your complaint. Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must be made within six months of our final response or within 6 years of the act complained of or if later within 3 years of you first knowing of the problem. There are also limits on who can complain, for example the scheme does not cover most businesses (unless they are defined as micro enterprises, charities or clubs with an annual income of less than £1m, or trustees of trust with asset value of less than £1m). For further information, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333 or enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or legalombudsman.org.uk

Complaints about our fees

If you have a complaint about our fees you may have the right to apply to the court for assessment of the bill (under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974) although you may have to pay interest if all or part of the bill remains unpaid.

Alternative complaints bodies

Alternative complaints bodies such as Ombudsman Services (www.ombudsman-services.org), ProMediate (www.promediate.co.uk) and Small Claims Mediation (www.small-claims-mediation.co.uk) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme. Some of these schemes charge for their services. We may agree to use such an alternative scheme and will consider each case individually.

Online Dispute Resolution

The ODR platform is an interactive website (webgate.ec.europa.eu) offering a single point of entry to consumers and traders seeking to resolve disputes. It is intended to facilitate the independent, impartial, transparent, effective, fast and fair out-of-court resolution of disputes between consumers and online traders.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (‘SRA’) can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.  You can contact the SRA at www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page.