Mon–Fri 9am – 5pm 0800 445 1000 info@kineticlaw.co.uk

Complaints Handling Procedure

How to raise a concern, what happens next, and your escalation options.

Our Complaints Policy

Kinetic Law Limited is committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards.

How to Make a Complaint

If you have a concern or a complaint about our service, our bill, or any other matter, please contact us as soon as you are aware of the problem so this can be addressed.

The firm’s complaints director is Shabaz Hussain. You can reach us by:

  • Post: Kinetic Law Limited, 68–68A King William Street, Blackburn, Lancashire, BB1 7DT
  • Telephone: 01254 846 561
  • Email: shussain@kineticlaw.co.uk

What Will Happen Next

Step One: Acknowledging Your Complaint

Within seven working days of receiving your complaint, we will acknowledge it and record it in our Complaints Register. A separate file will be opened in which we will store any correspondence and other documents relating to your complaint.

Step Two: Investigating Your Complaint

We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing it to our client care director, Shabaz Hussain, who will either personally review your matter file or appoint an appropriate individual to speak to the member of staff who acted for you.

Examples of how we may deal with your complaint:

  • If your complaint is straightforward, we may suggest how we can put things right or offer you some form of redress.
  • If your complaint is more complicated, we may ask you to confirm, explain, or clarify any issues.
  • We may ask to meet with you face-to-face and would hope to do so within fourteen working days of first receiving your complaint. If you would prefer not to meet, or if we cannot arrange this within an agreeable timescale, we will write to you fully setting out our views and making suggestions as to how we can put things right.

Whichever form our investigation takes, we will aim to provide our final decision within eight weeks of receiving your complaint (or sooner if possible).

Step Three: Appealing Against Our Final Decision

If you are not satisfied with our final decision, please let us know and we will review our decision again. We will inform you of the outcome of any appeal within fourteen days of receiving it.

If you remain dissatisfied with our final response, you may be eligible to refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, provided you do so within 6 months of our final response. Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must be made within 1 year from the date of the problem, or within 1 year from the date you should have reasonably known there was cause for complaint.

The Legal Ombudsman will not normally accept a complaint unless we have been given the opportunity to respond first. However, you may escalate matters if:

  • The complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within 8 weeks of it being made.
  • The Legal Ombudsman considers there are exceptional reasons to consider it sooner, or without it having been made to the firm first.
  • The Legal Ombudsman considers resolution through our internal procedure is not possible due to a breakdown in the relationship between you and the firm.

Anyone making a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must be:

  • An individual;
  • An enterprise with fewer than ten staff or a balance sheet of less than €2 million (as defined by European Recommendation 2003/361/EC of 6 May 2003);
  • A club, association, or society with an annual income of less than £1 million;
  • A charity with an annual income of less than £1 million;
  • A trustee of a trust with a net asset value of less than £1 million; or
  • A personal representative or residuary beneficiary of an estate where the person with a complaint died before referring it to the Legal Ombudsman.

If you do not fall into any of the above categories, the options available to you are to seek redress through this Complaints Handling Procedure, or by mediation, arbitration, or action through the Courts.

Contact details for the Legal Ombudsman:

  • Address: PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH
  • Telephone: 0300 555 0333
  • Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
  • Website: www.legalombudsman.co.uk

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has confirmed that the following ADR entities are currently available to deal with disputes in the legal services sector: Ombudsman Services, ProMediate, and Small Claims Mediation.

Please note that we are not agreeable to enter into ADR mediation until the Legal Ombudsman has been approved as an ADR provider.

Complaints About Your Bill

The above complaints procedure also applies to complaints arising from our bill. You may also have a right to object to the bill by applying to the court for an assessment under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. If all or part of a bill remains unpaid, the firm may be entitled to charge interest.

Raising Concerns with Our Regulator

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) can help if you are concerned about our behaviour — for example, dishonesty, taking or losing your money, or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability, or other characteristics. You can find information about raising concerns at www.sra.org.uk in the ‘For the public’ section.

Accessibility

If you need this information in another language, large print, Braille, or on audio CD, please call 0330 053 6767 or email publications@legalombudsman.org.uk.