Teelan & Silwal Family Law Limited Complaints Procedure
We hope that you will never have cause to complain about our services but, if you are dissatisfied with your relationship with us, or the way in which any aspect of your work is being or has been handled, you should contact the Director with overall responsibility for your matter in the first instance. Making a complaint will not affect how we handle your matter for so long as we remain acting for you.
Our complaints procedure
If your concern cannot be resolved by the Director with overall responsibility for your matter, then you should contact the other Director at the firm being either:
- Director at the Firm Rosalyn O’Donnell-Teelan, by email (rodt@tandsfamilylaw.com) or post (2 Stephen Street, London, W1T 1AN) or phone (+44(0) 20 3036 0978).
- Director at the Firm Catherine Silwal, by email (cs@tandsfamilylaw.com) or post (2 Stephen Street, London, W1T 1AN) or phone (+44(0) 20 3036 0978).
We reserve the right to respond to any complaint against us either through the individual with overall responsibility for your matter or through the alternative Director listed above.
What will happen next?
- We will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and asking you to confirm or explain any details. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint.
- We will then record your complaint in our central register and open a file for your complaint. We will also investigate your complaint by examining your matter file.
- If appropriate, we will then invite you to meet with or speak with a Director to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. We would hope to be in a position to meet or speak with you in this way no longer than 14 days after first receiving your complaint. If you would prefer not to meet, or if we cannot arrange this within an agreeable timescale, the Director will write to you setting out her views on the situation and any redress that we would feel to be appropriate.
- Within two days of any meeting, we will write to you to confirm what took place and any suggestions that we have agreed with you. In appropriate cases we could offer an apology, a reduction of any bill or a repayment in relation to any payment received. This may also be the case if we do not have a call or meeting and if we are able to deal with matters in correspondence.
- At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, please let us know. We will then arrange to review our decision. We would generally aim to do this within 10 days. This will happen in one of the following ways:
- The Director will review her own decision.
- We will arrange for someone in the firm who has not been involved in your complaint to review it.
- We will invite you to agree to independent mediation. We will let you know how long this process will take.
- We will let you know the result of the review within five days of its end. At this time, we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons. We will also give you the name and address of the Legal Ombudsman (also set out below) if you are still not satisfied, so that you can contact them regarding your complaint. We very much hope that this will not be necessary.
You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for suspicions of dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic, although we are confident that you will never need to raise such an issue.
What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint
The Legal Ombudsman can help you if we are unable to resolve your complaint ourselves. They will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your case for so long as we remain acting for you.
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:
- Within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint from us; and either
- No more than one year from the date of act/omission; or
- No more than one year from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
There may be some exceptions to these time frames. If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them using the details below.
Contact details for Legal Ombudsman
Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9am to 5pm
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH
