We at WP Tweed & Co. are committed to providing a good legal service to all our clients, and we are committed to treating our clients fairly. If you feel that something goes wrong, we want you to tell us about it.
Our complaints procedure
If you are dissatisfied with the service you have received, or if you would like us to review our advice, please write to the person who is dealing with your matter first.
If you feel that is not appropriate, or if you are still dissatisfied, please contact Paul Tweed, Senior Partner. You can write to him at:
1. Scottish Provident Building, 7 Donegall Square West, Belfast, BT1 6JH
2. 4 Harbourmaster Place, IFSC, Dublin 1
3, 21 Arlington Street, London, SW1A 1RN
or email him at paul.tweed@wptweed.com
or telephone him at +44 28 9013 8562
If your complaint is about Paul Tweed contact Selena Kerins at the same address or email her at selena.kerins@wptweed.com
Please set out as clearly as you can the nature of your complaint and how it has arisen.
Procedural steps
1. Within 3 working days of receiving your complaint (i.e. excluding weekends and Bank Holidays) we will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint and, if necessary, asking you to confirm or explain the details of your complaint. We will also let you know the name of the person who will be dealing with your complaint
2. We will record your complaint in our central register, and open a file for your complaint.
3. We will examine the relevant file and if we need any information from you in order to investigate the complaint, we will request you to provide it.
4. If it seems appropriate, we will suggest a meeting with you to discuss the complaint with you and, if possible, to resolve it.
5. At the conclusion of our investigation, we will send you a letter setting out our findings. If the matter has been resolved by a meeting between you and the person dealing with your complaint, our letter will confirm to you what took place and any solutions we agreed with you.
6. Our aim will be to conclude our investigation within 20 working days of receiving the complaint or, if we need more time before we can conclude our investigation, we will write to you within that time to tell you of the likely timescale.
Review
7. If, after we have concluded our investigation and written to you, you are still not satisfied, you can write to ask us to review our response. We will then review our response. We may suggest an external individual or body (for example the Local Law Society) to review our response.
8. We may (but are not required to) invite you to agree to independent mediation, in which case we will let you know what this process involves and how long it may be expected to take.
9. Once these steps have been carried out, we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons. We would generally aim to do this and write to you within 15 working days of receiving your request to us to review our response to your complaint. If the review is going to take longer, for example because further investigation is required or because we are inviting you to a mediation, we will write to you within that time to tell you of the likely timescale.
If you are still not satisfied and if your complaint relates to services provided in:
England & Wales: Legal Ombudsman Scheme
10. You may be entitled to refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, if you fall into one of the following categories: an individual, a small business, small charity, small club or trustee of a small trust, personal representative or beneficiary under a will; if in doubt whether you fall into one of those categories, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman.
11. The contact details for the Legal Ombudsman are as follows:
Address: PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Phone: 0300 500 0333
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
12. The time limit for referring the matter to the Legal Ombudsman is generally six months after the end of our own procedure explained above. This time limit should in each case be checked with the Legal Ombudsman.
Northern Ireland- Law Society of Northern Ireland
13. You may be entitled to refer your complaint to the Law Society of Northern Ireland within 6 months at the following address:
The Law Society of Northern Ireland
96 Victoria Street,
Belfast,
BT1 3GN
Tel : +44 28 9023 1614 Email complaints@lawsoc-ni.org
Republic of Ireland – Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA)
From 7 October 2019, the Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA) deals with complaints against solicitors.
The contact details for the LSRA are:
Address: LSRA, PO Box 12906, Dublin 7
Phone: 01 8592911
General queries email: Lsra-inbox@lsra.ie
Complaints email: complaints@lsra.ie
Website: www.lsra.ie/make-a-complaint/
