Hobbs Law is committed to providing a high-quality service to our clients and we pride ourselves on our thorough and professional approach to our work.
Whist we rarely receive complaints, it is important to have procedures in place to help you in the event of your wishing to make a complaint.
The following procedure is intended to inform you of the way in which we handle complaints and help you to decide the best approach to take. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards.
Whenever possible, please raise any initial client care problems with the person acting on your matter to give them the opportunity of resolving matters with you. Often matters can be quickly resolved in this way.
If you have a concern or a complaint that has not been dealt with to your satisfaction by the person handling your case, or their supervising partner, please contact us as soon as you are aware of the problem so this can be addressed.
We ask that you communicate your complaint to us in writing setting out your particular concerns. This helps us to understand your complaint and respond to it.
The person with overall responsibility for managing complaints is Louise Hobbs and she can be contacted by post at Hobbs Law LLP, 21 Tennyson Road, Aldwick, Bognor Regis West Sussex PO21 2SB, or by email at louisehobbs@hobbslaw.co.uk
If your complaint should be against Louise Hobbs, please contact Michael Hobbs by post at Hobbs Law LLP, 21 Tennyson Road, Aldwick, Bognor Regis West Sussex PO21 2SB, or by email at mikehobbs@hobbslaw.co.uk
1. We will send to you an acknowledgement of your complaint within three working days of receipt and enclose a copy of this procedure.
2. We will then investigate your complaint, which will involve reviewing your matter file and speaking to the member of staff who acted for you. This may involve inviting you to a meeting to discuss your concerns.
3. We will send you a reply to your complaint within 15 working days of receipt. If we are unable to respond to you within that time, we will inform you. The majority of matters are resolved at this stage.
4. If you remain unhappy you are free to write to us again to set out your concerns and ask for a review and we will consider your comments.
5. We will write to you within 10 working days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
6. If your complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction within eight weeks of it having been made to us, you have the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman (LeO). The time limit for referring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman will be not later than one year from the date:
The Legal Ombudsman will have a discretion to accept out-of-time complaints in circumstances where it deems it “fair and reasonable to do so”.
7. If your complaint is about a bill you have the right to complain to LeO and/or apply to the Court for the assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. However if you have already applied to the Court for an assessment of your bill, the LeO may not deal with your complaint.
8. The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. You can raise your concerns with the SRA in the following way:-
We are of course always glad to receive your comments on our service and to hear how we can help to improve it. Any complaint is always taken very seriously and if you do find cause for complaint you can be assured that it will be investigated thoroughly.
