Complaints Procedure - Legal Services

HCB considers a complaint to be “an oral or written expression of dissatisfaction which alleges that the complainant has suffered (or may suffer) financial loss, distress, inconvenience or other detriment.”

If you have a complaint about the work being done on your behalf you can give us details about your complaint either by telephone, personal visit, by letter or by email, and you may make your complaint either to the person who is dealing with your work, or to the Client Care Representative, Mr Rae Levene (“Mr Levene”) who has the ultimate responsibility for complaints. We normally recommend that any initial query or complaint is raised with the fee earner in charge of your file in order to try and obtain as swift a resolution as possible. If however you wish to raise the matter at the outset with Mr Levene and he is unavailable you should raise your complaint with a fellow member of the relevant Firm.

Your complaint will be acknowledged by us within three working days. In that acknowledgement we will indicate the likely timetable for a definitive response to your complaint.  We endeavour to respond to all complaints within fourteen days but there are circumstances such as complexity and planned and unplanned leave which might prevent this.  In such cases we will inform you of the time in which we will respond, but in any event a definitive response will be given within 8 weeks.

During this time, your complaint will then be investigated and you may be invited to attend our office for a discussion. You will be sent a response in writing. We will try to deal with your complaint to your satisfaction, but if it cannot be resolved then we will tell you of the next step which is open to you.

If the response to your complaint was not to your satisfaction, you may ask for the matter to be referred to Mr Levene or to a fellow member of the relevant Firm who will try to resolve the complaint including, if appropriate, by arranging a meeting with you to discuss the matter further. Any referral to Mr Levene or fellow member will be conducted in accordance with a similar timetable to that in section 2 of this procedure, concerning both acknowledgement of the referral and also our response. 

If Mr Levene or other member is unable to resolve the matter when it has been referred to them, it is at that stage that you should consider making a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman. Their address is as follows:-

Legal Ombudsman

PO Box 6806

Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ

Minicom: 0300 555 1777

Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Information about complaints against solicitors can be found on the Legal Ombudsman website at www.legalombudsman.org.uk. Please note: A complaint must be referred to the Legal Ombudsman within a 6 month period which runs from the earlier of the expiry of the 8 week period (in which a response from the firm should be received) or the date when a definitive response is received within that 8 week period. There are exceptions to these timescales, details of which can be found on the Legal Ombudsman’s website.

There are two other relevant time limits. The complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must be about an act or omission by us which happened within the last six years or within three years of you becoming aware of it.

You should also note that whilst all individuals have recourse to the Legal Ombudsman, some charities, companies and other organisations may not be eligible. Again, details can be found on the Legal Ombudsman’s website.

In the event that you are at all worried about complying with the Legal Ombudsman’s time limits they can be contacted using the above contact details.