Complaints Procedure
We hope you will be happy with the professional services provided by Abbas Media Law Ltd (‘ABBAS’). However, if you are not satisfied about any aspect of the service you receive or about our charges, you should let us know as soon as possible.
This document sets out the policy and procedures that ABBAS will normally follow when dealing with a complaint.
How To Complain
Minor complaints such as matters of discourtesy may be made by telephone or in person either to the relevant ABBAS lawyer or to Nigel Abbas, the CEO of ABBAS. When contacting us, please state the nature of your complaint and what you would like us to do about it. We aim to resolve telephone complaints promptly and informally. If we do so, we will make a note of the resolution. You may wish to do the same. For other complaints, including complaints about a failure in professional service, please contact us in writing. If you have complained by telephone or in person and it has not been resolved to your satisfaction, please write to us. Once we receive a written complaint, we will investigate it formally. When making a written complaint, please provide the following details:
Your name and address;
If you are complaining about an ABBAS member of staff, please name the ABBAS lawyer in question;
The capacity in which you are complaining (as a client, or on behalf of one, or otherwise);
The details of the complaint; and
What you would like us to do about it.
Please address all written complaints to ABBAS’ Compliance Officer for Legal Practice:
Nigel Abbas, Abbas Media Law, 1st Floor, 239 Kensington High Street, London, W8 6SN.
Alternatively, or additionally, please email the complaint to nigel@abbasmedialaw.com.
Delay may make it harder for us to investigate your complaint and establish the facts so please contact us as promptly as possible. We may decline to investigate a complaint which is made more than 12 months after the act or omission complained about, without good reason for the delay. Further information about the time limits on any action by the Legal Ombudsman is set out below.
Taking It Further
We aim to acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 48 hours of us receiving it and to provide you with details of how we will deal with your complaint.
Once we receive a complaint, we will appoint an ABBAS staff member to investigate. We have a panel headed by Nigel Abbas, ABBAS’ CEO, and senior ABBAS staff. Within 14 days of receiving a written complaint, Nigel Abbas will appoint a panel member to investigate. If your complaint is about Nigel, the next most senior panel member will investigate it. The person appointed to investigate your complaint will never be the person you are complaining about.
The person appointed to investigate your complaint will write to you as soon as possible to let you know he or she has been appointed and that they will reply to your complaint within a further 14 days (which should be no more than 28 days after ABBAS receives your complaint). If that person finds later that they are not going to be able to reply within 14 days, they will set a new date for their reply and inform you. The reply will set out:
The nature and scope of their investigation;
The conclusion on each complaint and the basis for his/her conclusion; and
If he or she finds that your complaint was justified, his/her proposal for resolving the complaint.
We aim to resolve your complaint within eight weeks from receipt of your letter of complaint. We will not make any charge for handling your complaint.
Dealing With Your Complaint
Once you have made a complaint to us, as noted above, we will aim to respond within eight weeks. If we are unable to resolve your complaint, or we have not responded within the eight weeks, then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman is a free, impartial and independent service set up by the Government which deals with complaints about the service you have received. 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.
The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are:
Telephone: 0300 555 0333
Website: https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/
Post: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH
E-mail: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Please note that to be entitled to complain to the Legal Ombudsman, you must be:
An individual;
A business or enterprise that is a micro-enterprise (European Union definition [1]);
A charity that has an annual income, net of tax, of less than £1 million;
A club/association/organisation, the affairs of which are managed by its members/a committee/a committee of its members, that has an annual income, net of tax, of less than £1 million;
A trustee of a trust with an asset value of less than £1 million; or
A personal representative or beneficiary of the estate of a person who, before they died, had not referred the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman.
The SRA deals with cases where firms or solicitors have breached the Principles of the Solicitors’ Code of Conduct which sets out the professional standards the SRA expects of all firms and regulated individuals. Further details on the SRA complaints procedure can be found at: https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems.page
Alternative complaints bodies such as ProMediate (see: https://www.promediate.co.uk/) can also deal with complaints about legal services if we remain unable to resolve your complaint and agree to use such a scheme. If you would like to explore this option, please contact us.
Micro enterprises are defined as enterprises which employ fewer than 10 persons and whose annual turnover or annual balance sheet total does not exceed €2 million. (Article 1 and Article 2(1) and (3) of the Annex to Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC, as that Recommendation had effect at the date it was adopted.)