Complaints

Complaints

Keystone Law is committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients.

When a complaint is raised with us, we will evaluate it and determine what we can do to address the issues it raises. Often, we are able to offer a solution to the issues raised and we are always looking to improve the services that we offer. For this reason, we review complaints received annually.

This Policy sets out how we deal with complaints.

What is a complaint?

A ‘complaint’ is any oral or written expression of concern or dissatisfaction with our provision of services. A regulatory report on its own is not a complaint.

Our objectives under the Policy

When dealing with your complaint, we will endeavour:

• To deal with all complaints promptly, fairly and without charge.
• To be honest and open with clients if things go wrong, to explain what has happened and to the extent possible, if a client suffers loss or harm, to put matters right
• To have proper regard to our legal and regulatory duties and entitlements.
• To act reasonably when dealing with your complaint.

With a view to achieving the above objectives, please note:

• Our confidentiality duties to other clients, and our duties to our professional indemnity insurers, can affect and constrain how we respond.
• Where the complaint concerns particularly complex issues or is in reality a negligence claim, then we may respond saying that it is better dealt with under the applicable Pre-action Protocol for civil litigation.
• Where it is reasonable for us to do so, we may extend the timescales for our responses (and particularly where the matter is complex or we are waiting for a response from you or a third party, or for the occurrence of a relevant event).

The Legal Ombudsman’s rules allow a complainant to refer a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman where it has not been resolved within eight weeks of the complaint being made to us. Correspondingly, we are entitled to a reasonable opportunity to investigate and respond to a complaint within that period. For that reason, you should provide all information and evidence on which you wish to rely at the outset, or promptly, where we  ask you for information.

Who can make a complaint?

This Policy is mainly for the use of our clients (i.e. those persons for whom we act).

However, a non-client can use this Policy to make their concerns known to us by contacting us as set out below. Understanding how our services affect others gives us an opportunity to improve. Accordingly, we allow anyone to bring concerns to us under this Policy.

How we respond to a non-client complaint thereafter will be for us to assess and is likely to depend on what, if any, duties we owe the complaining non-client. In some instances, we will let you know that we are not taking matters forward. This may be because doing so could involve acting otherwise than in the best interests of our clients or could involve a breach of our confidentiality duties.

To whom should you make a complaint?

It is your choice how to let us know about your concerns. Where you prefer to deal informally with the lawyer performing the services about which you are complaining, where you do not want your concerns to be treated as a formal complaint and where you seek a quick and informal resolution, then we suggest you contact the lawyer engaged in the matter about which you wish to complain. Where there are several such lawyers, we suggest you contact the most senior of them. If you have contacted the lawyer performing the services and are not happy with the resolution, if you are in any doubt as to whom to contact, and in all other cases, you should contact our central complaints function, using the contact details below. You can still contact the lawyer performing the services about which you are complaining and have us treat your complaint as a formal complaint, but if so, you should also let our central complaints function know, so we can ensure you receive a response within the required time window.

By offering you a choice of informal and formal resolution processes and by making it clear in what circumstances we will apply which process, we give you the option as to the best way to resolve things. We recognise that most of the time our clients do want to resolve things informally. We understand that raising a formal complaint can impact on the solicitor/client relationship and often that is the last thing clients wish to do.

When can you make a complaint?

You can make use of this Policy at any time.

Nonetheless, we would prefer that you inform us promptly if you have a complaint or are unhappy with our provision of services. That will allow us to do our best to resolve the problem swiftly.

There are time limits that can apply to the commencement and progression of complaints before the Legal Ombudsman, as explained below.

Content of a complaint

You should explain what happened and how that affected you. To the fullest extent possible you should  provide evidence to support what you say. You should ensure that everything you want us to look at is included in your complaint. Usually evidence will include documents, copies of correspondence, transcripts, photos etc. We may struggle to understand or address any concern you raise where evidence is available, but not provided.

If there is a particular remedy or change that you feel would resolve your concerns, then you should explain that to us in your complaint. This is especially important if you choose to make a complaint to the members of this firm you have engaged.

If you would like to resolve the matter through a call with our Complaints Team, then you should say so and provide the number you want us to call. If we don’t agree to speak to you by telephone, we will let you know in writing.

What should you do if you have a complaint?

If you have a complaint, you should write to The Complaints Team, Keystone Law, 48 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1JF.

We recommend using special delivery when corresponding with us about a complaint. That way, you will know when we have received your complaint.

What will happen once we have received your complaint?

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within five clear working days of our receipt of the complaint, enclosing a copy of this Policy. (At Christmas time, we extend this to ten clear working days.)

2. We will start to investigate your complaint. This will involve passing your complaint to an appropriate person in our Complaints Team, who will independently review your matter file and speak to the relevant individual(s), including any colleagues named in your complaint.

You should provide all information and evidence on which you wish to rely when you first make your complaint. This is important because we are required to investigate and respond to complaints within applicable regulatory timescales and we are entitled to a reasonable opportunity to consider the complaint and the material relied upon in support of it.

If, after receiving your complaint, we consider that we need further information from you in order to investigate it, we may ask you to provide that information. Where we do so, we will ordinarily give you seven days to provide it. During that period, we may pause our investigation to give you the opportunity to provide the requested information. This does not pause or extend the overall eight-week period referred to in this Policy, but it allows you a fair opportunity to provide the information that we have requested.

If you do not provide the requested information within that period, we may proceed to investigate and determine your complaint on the basis of the information available to us. In those circumstances, we may treat you as having chosen not to take the opportunity to provide the requested information within the time allowed.

If you provide information or evidence after the expiry of any period we have given you for doing so, or if you provide further information or evidence without having been asked to do so, we will consider whether it is reasonable to take that material into account before we issue our final response, having regard to the time remaining to us to complete our investigation, how far progressed our complaint response is and the scale, nature and relevance  of the information provided .

If we do not consider that we can reasonably take further material into account within the existing timetable, we will let you know. If you want that material to be considered as part of the complaint, you may agree an extension of time with us. If an extension cannot be agreed, then, provided we have not yet issued our final response, it is open to you to withdraw your complaint and resubmit it with the further material.

Where further information or evidence raises new issues, new allegations, or a materially expanded complaint, we may treat those matters as a new or separate complaint.

3. Where we believe a telephone conversation could assist in resolving the complaint, then, within eight working days of acknowledging your complaint, we will write to you to arrange a resolution telephone call.

4. Where we speak with you on the telephone and are unable to resolve your complaint by agreement or where we do not believe a resolution telephone conversation would be appropriate, then within eight weeks of receiving your complaint, we will write to you with our findings, which may include a suggested solution, where appropriate.

5. We will endeavour to provide our final response letter within eight weeks of receiving your complaint to us. It can take longer to respond to complex complaints.

As noted above, and provided it is reasonable to do so, we may extend some of the above timescales.

If we do so, we will inform you in writing of our reasons.

Our final response letter, and after

We want to deal with your complaint in a manner that achieves our objectives (see above). Our final response letter will reflect those objectives.

In the event that you are not satisfied with our final response letter, or if we do not resolve your complaint within eight weeks of your contacting us, then the Legal Ombudsman may be able to consider your complaint.

The Legal Ombudsman

The Legal Ombudsman is an independent complaints body established under the Legal Services Act 2007. It can investigate complaints about the legal services you have received from us.

The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are:

Visit legalombudsman.org.uk

Call 0300 555 0333 between 10am to 4pm

Relay UK: 18001 0300 555 0333

Email enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Or by post to Legal Ombudsman PO BOX 6167, Slough SL1 0EH

The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within one year of you realising there was a concern. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you.

If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman service, including the time limits for taking a case to them, please contact the Legal Ombudsman directly. You can find out more about their service by visiting www.legalombudsman.org.uk or by contacting them directly using the methods set out above.

Complaints and our professional obligations

If you make a complaint whilst we are still acting for you, then we will try to ensure that it does not affect our ongoing provision of services to you.

In some instances, however, a complaint can engage our professional conduct obligations. For example, we may need to cease to act if the complaint gives rise to a conflict of interest situation (we are prohibited by the SRA’s Codes of Conduct from acting where there is a significant risk that our duty to act in a client’s best interests in relation to a matter conflicts, or there is a significant risk that it may conflict, with our own interests in relation to that or a related matter).

Other ways of seeking redress

This document is concerned solely with raising informal concerns, our Complaints Policy and aspects of the Legal Ombudsman service.

You may have other options for seeking redress from us, including bringing a claim against us before the civil courts and applying to court for an assessment of our bills, under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974.  

We cannot advise you on the existence or assertion of these other possible options for redress. You should seek independent legal advice concerning them.

Please also note that there are different time limits for applying to the court for an assessment under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974 and raising concerns with the Legal Ombudsman. These time limits, and the interaction between these options, can be complex issues and we strongly recommend seeking legal advice concerning them (or to consult the Legal Ombudsman).

You should also note that we are usually entitled to charge interest on our bills while they are outstanding.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) may also be able to help you if you have any concerns about our professional conduct. The SRA has published helpful guidance in this regard for members of the public: at https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor/.

Your ability to make a complaint to the SRA is a separate matter to the issues addressed in this Policy and you do not have to follow this Policy in order to make a complaint to the SRA. You do not have to have been our client, or a beneficiary of our services, in order to approach the SRA.