Complaints Procedure

Introduction

BW Solicitors is committed to providing the highest quality legal services to all of our clients. We take all feedback seriously, and if something has gone wrong — whether with the service we have provided or with the way in which we have handled your matter — we want to hear about it so that we can put it right.

This page sets out our complaints procedure. It applies to all clients of BW Solicitors Ltd (SRA ID 669679), regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

On receipt of your complaint, we will:

1. Step 1. Acknowledge your complaint in writing within three business days of receiving it.

2. Step 2. Carry out a thorough investigation into the matter, which may involve reviewing your file and speaking with the fee earner who handled your matter.

3. Step 3. Provide you with a full written response within ten business days of receiving your complaint, setting out our findings and any proposed resolution.

4. Step 4. If we require more time to investigate, we will write to you within ten business days to explain why and to give you a revised timescale — which will not exceed eight weeks from the date of your complaint.

Where we find that something has gone wrong, we will tell you what happened, apologise where appropriate, explain what we will do to put matters right, and tell you what steps we are taking to prevent the same problem from occurring again.

If you are not satisfied with our response, or if your complaint has not been resolved within eight weeks of being made, you have the right to refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman — the independent complaints body for legal services in England and Wales.

Time limits for referring to the Legal Ombudsman

You must refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are complaining, or within one year of the date when you should reasonably have known that there was cause for complaint. You must also refer the complaint within six months of receiving our final written response to your complaint.

The Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints about the service provided by a solicitor. If you have concerns about a solicitor's conduct — for example, dishonesty, serious breaches of the SRA Code of Conduct, or matters of professional misconduct — these should be reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) rather than (or in addition to) the Legal Ombudsman.

Alternative Dispute Resolution

As an alternative to the Legal Ombudsman, you may also be entitled to refer certain disputes to an approved Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) body. If this is applicable to your complaint, we will provide you with details of the relevant ADR scheme in our final written response. You should be aware that we are not obliged to use ADR and will confirm our position in that response.