Client complaints and data protection complaints policy

You can contact us in writing, by email, or by speaking with us. Service complaints should be directed to our Complaints Director, Katy Wilson, whose contact details are:

1. By Post: TLW Solicitors, CAI Building, Coble Dene, North Shields, NE29 6DE
2. By Telephone: 0191 2931500
3. By E-mail: kwilson@tlwsolicitors.co.uk

If your complaint relates to data protection, privacy, information rights, or the way in which we have handled personal data, please make this clear when contacting us. You may use the same contact details above and we will ensure that the complaint is directed to the appropriate person for investigation.

If your complaint involves a matter that Katy Wilson is dealing with, the complaint will be dealt with by Peter McKenna, the Senior Director in the firm.

The postal address and telephone contact details for Peter McKenna are the same as above.

The direct email contact details for Peter McKenna are:

E-mail: pmckenna@tlwsolicitors.co.uk

To help us understand your complaint, and to ensure that we do not miss anything, please tell us:

1. your full name and contact details
2. what you think we have got wrong
3. what you hope to achieve as a result of your complaint, and
4. your file reference number (if you have it)
5. if your complaint is about data protection, the personal data or information rights  issue you are concerned about, and any relevant dates or correspondence.

If you require any help in making your complaint, including any assistance because of a disability, communication need, language need, or other specific requirement, we will try to help you. Please let us know what support you need.

We will record your complaint centrally and identify whether it is a service complaint, a complaint about a bill, a data protection complaint, or a complaint involving more than one of these issues.

For service complaints, we will write to you within 7 days acknowledging your complaint and enclosing a copy of this policy. For data protection complaints, we will acknowledge receipt as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event within 30 days of receiving the complaint.

We will investigate your complaint fairly, objectively and without undue delay.

This will usually involve:

1. reviewing your complaint
2. reviewing your file(s) and other relevant documents, and
3. speaking with the person who dealt with your matter
4. where the complaint concerns personal data, making appropriate enquiries into the relevant processing activity and considering any information rights issue raised

We may also need to ask you for further information or documents. If so, we will ask you to provide the information within a specific period of time.

We will update you on the progress of your complaint at appropriate times and will let you know where additional time is required to complete the investigation.

We will write to you at the end of our investigation to tell you what we have done, the outcome of the complaint, and what we propose to do to resolve it. For service complaints, we will aim to do this within 21 days of the date of our letter of acknowledgement. For data protection complaints, we will provide the outcome without undue delay once our investigation is complete.

If we have to change any of the timescales referred to in this Policy, we will let you know and explain why.

We will retain records of complaints and their outcomes in accordance with our data protection and records management procedures.

If you are unhappy with the outcome of our complaints handling procedure, please first let us know and we will review the matter.   We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

For service complaints, if you are still unhappy with our final response, or if we have not resolved your service complaint within eight weeks of receiving it, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to look into your complaint. You can contact the Legal Ombudsman:

1. By post: PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH
2. By telephone: 0300 555 0333, or
3. By email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Further information about the Legal Ombudsman and how to make a complaint is available from the Legal Ombudsman website.

Normally, you must refer a service complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving our final written response to your complaint. In addition, the Legal Ombudsman will usually expect the complaint to be referred within one year of the act or omission being complained about, or within one year of the date when you should reasonably have realised that there was cause for complaint.

Depending on your individual status, some clients may not have the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman, for example most businesses (unless defined as a micro enterprise), charities or clubs with an annual income of more than £1 million, or trustees of a trust with an asset value of more than £1 million. However, even if you are a client who does not have the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman, you will still be able to use our review procedure and/or your right to assessment of any bill. Further details are available from the Legal Ombudsman website.

If your complaint is about data protection and you remain dissatisfied following our response, you have the right to raise your concerns with the Information Commissioner’s Office. The Information Commissioner’s Office will usually expect you to have raised your concerns with us first and to bring your complaint to it within three months of your last meaningful contact with us about the issue.

You can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office:

1. By post: Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
2. By telephone: 0303 123 1113

Further information about the Information Commissioner’s Office and how to make a complaint is available from the ICO website.

Where your complaint contains both service and data protection issues, we may deal with the issues together where this is practical, but we will explain the appropriate escalation route for each type of complaint in our response.

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Schemes

We do not agree to use an alternative dispute resolution provider because complaints about our legal services may be referred to the Legal Ombudsman where eligible.