BW&Co (UK) Limited is a Firm regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (“SRA”) with no. 663557.
In accordance with SRA requirements, we are required to publish our Complaints Procedure on our website. This is set out below.
We take client care and the provision of our professional services seriously, and we hope that if any issue whatsoever should arise, you will immediately contact us, in order that we can resolve any actual, or indeed potential, issues at an early stage.
Our client care appointed officer responsible for dealing with complaints is Federico Ferrigno. Please feel free to contact Federico Ferrigno directly, using his email federico.ferrigno@bwcolaw.co.uk.
Our preferred method of communication is by email, although we are of course happy to communicate by telephone or letter. References to communications in writing below include emails.
Informal Discussions
Stage 1
We will telephone and/or write to you acknowledging receipt of your complaint within 3 working days of receiving it.
Stage 2
We will then investigate your complaint internally with the solicitor concerned and the client care officer. That investigation may well be somewhat involved, as this largely depends on the nature of the complaint and the complexity of the matter concerned.
Stage 3
Within 10 working days of the commencement of our investigations we will contact you again with our preliminary comments and any proposed solutions or, if necessary, to request further documentation. If further time is needed, we will let you know.
Stage 4
If the matter is not yet resolved at Stage 3, including any necessary extra time, we will send you within a further 10 working days (i.e. 20 working days from the commencement of the investigation) a full written response to your complaint including any appropriate suggestions for resolution.
Stage 5
If you are still not satisfied with our response, provided the request is received within 10 working days of our reply in stage 4, we will arrange for a review of our response to the complaint. Unless there is new information or documentation to consider, we will carry out our review and contact you again in writing within 10 working days.
Legal Ombudsman
Obviously, we very much hope that all issues are resolved amicably as part of the above process but, in the unlikely event that we cannot resolve your complaint, you may have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates problems about poor service from lawyers.
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, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:
1. Within six months of receiving our final response to your complaint and
2. No more than one year from the date of the alleged act or omission or
3. No more than one year from when you should reasonably have known of the alleged cause for complaint.
The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are as follows;
PO Box 6806
Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ
Telephone:
0300 555 0333 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday
Email:
enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Website:
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). In the highly unlikely event that you need to make a complaint, and your complaint is not about our service, but is about our conduct, the SRA deals with conduct issues rather than the Legal Ombudsman which deals with service issues. You can visit the SRA’s website here to see how you can raise concerns with them.