James Murray Solicitors Complaints and Data Protection Complaints Policy

COMPLAINTS

We want you to be happy with the service that we provide at James Murray Solicitors but sometimes things do go wrong. Our Complaints Policy is designed to help you bring your dissatisfaction to our attention so we can look at what has happened and provide you with an explanation. We welcome feedback and we hope that you will let us know if you believe you have reason to complain about any aspect of our service or a bill. If you tell us as soon as you feel there is a problem, we can take steps immediately to fix any issues you may have. You will not be charged for the work involved in investigating a complaint made by you.

Our Complaints Procedure

When we receive your complaint, it will be recorded in our Central Register and we will write to you to acknowledge we have received it. We will give you the opportunity to attend a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint.

If you do wish to complain, you should address your concerns to: Jayne Thomas, Office Manager, James Murray Solicitors, 41 Merton Road, Bootle L20 7AP – Telephone Number: 0151 933 3333. email address: jthomas@jamesmurraylaw.com.

Jayne Thomas has responsibility for Complaints Handling, however your complaint may be dealt with by a member of our Management Team who will act as Complaint Handler and we will inform you of that person’s name when acknowledging receipt of your complaint. In the first instance you should speak to your file handler if you wish to raise any concerns.

Whilst it is not essential for you to put your complaint in writing, it would be helpful if you could ensure that you clearly explain the nature of your complaint, describe the facts and events relating to it and what (if any) loss may have incurred as a result.

What happens next?

• As mentioned above, we will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint enclosing a copy of this procedure and letting you know who will be dealing with your complaint.
• We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve a review of your case file and we will speak to your file handler.
• If you attend a meeting, we will write to you to confirm what took place and set out any solutions that have been agreed with you.
• If you do not wish to meet to discuss your complaint, we will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including suggestions for resolving the matter, within eight weeks of your complaint.
• At this stage, if you remain dissatisfied with what we have said and how we propose to resolve your complaint, we can arrange for our decision to be reviewed. This may happen in one of the following ways:
  • our own review of our handling of your complaint;
  • by arranging for someone else from our Management Team, who is entirely unconnected with the complaint, to review how it was handled and the decision taken.
• We will write to you within 14 working days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

The Legal Ombudsman

We hope that we are able to resolve your complaint satisfactorily. However, if you remain unhappy with our response or we have not resolved your complaint within 8 weeks then you can refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, an independent complaints body established under the Legal Services Act, who can investigate complaints about the legal service you have received from us. 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 can be contacted using the following details:
Address: PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 OEH
Telephone: 0300 555 0333
Minicom: 0300 555 1777
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

The Costs Lawyer Standards Board (CLSB)

Individual Costs Lawyers who work for us are regulated by the CLSB and the CLSB can investigate complaints about those Costs Lawyers’ professional conduct. If you wish to complain about a Costs Lawyer’s conduct, you should contact the CLSB promptly.

The CLSB will consider complaints made within 12 months of the date on which the matters giving rise to the complaint occurred or the date on which the complainant first became aware that they had grounds for the complaint. This period can be extended in exceptional circumstances. The CLSB will usually expect you to give us a chance to resolve your complaint first.

The CLSB can be contacted using the following details:
Address: PO Box 4336, Manchester, M61 0BW
Telephone: 0161 956 8969
Email: enquiries@clsb.info
Website: www.clsb.info

DATA PROTECTION COMPLAINTS POLICY

What are data protection complaints?

If you consider that we have infringed data protection legislation because of the way we have handled your personal information (or the personal information of someone you are acting on behalf of), you can make a complaint.
In order to submit a data protection complain, you do not have to use legal terms or quote sections of the legislation.
For example, you may submit data protection complaints about:

• the way we have responded to your subject access request (SAR), or other rights request;
• the security measures we have used to store your information (eg someone who has been impacted by a data breach, regardless of whether it’s reportable to the ICO); or
• how we have collected or used your personal information (eg where it is stored, how long we have kept it for, or its accuracy). If you want to complain about our service or other matters, whilst also exercising your data protection rights. This does not count as a data protection complaint.

How to make a Data Protection Complaint

If you wish to make a Data Protection Complaint then you can use one of the following methods:-

1. By email to info@jamesmurraylaw.com ;
2. By post to Office Manager, James Murray Solicitors, 41 Merton Road, Bootle, Liverpool L20 7AP); or
3. Telephone 0151 933 3333.

What do we do when we receive a data protection complaint?

We will acknowledge your data protection complaint within 30 days – the 30 days starts the day after you have made a complaint even if this day falls on a weekend or bank holiday. If the last day to acknowledge the complaint falls on a weekend or public holiday, we have until the next working day to provide an acknowledgement.
If you have made a complaint by email then we will respond accordingly; likewise by post. If you have made a complaint over the phone we will reply by email or post. We will keep a record of your complaint and the acknowledgement.

How will we investigate your data protection complaint?

We will start by gathering as much information as we need, including:

• look at all the relevant facts thoroughly, fairly and accurately;
• speak to relevant members of staff;
• compare the information from your complaint with the information we hold; and
• check we have upheld our own terms, policies and standards.

We may need to contact you for more information to clarify the nature of your data protection complaint and request more information. We may also ask what outcome you are looking for.

We confirm that we will investigate your data protection complaint without undue delay
The time it takes us to investigate is likely to be impacted by:

• the complexity of your issue;
• the scale of your issue (eg whether it’s a singular complaint about a recent issue, or a complaint about a number of issues over a longer time period); and

There may be a wide range of factors that influence how long our investigation takes.

We will keep you updated on the progress of our investigation and keep you up to date with timeframes regarding any possible delays.

Keeping a record

We will keep a record of the following:-:

• The date we received the data protection complaint;
• our acknowledgement;
• any relevant conversations and documents;
• the outcome of the complaint; and
• any actions we took as a result of our investigation.

What happens when we have finished our investigation?

When we have completed our investigation, we will let you know the outcome. We will aim to do this without an unjustifiable or excessive delay. If we are able to investigate the complaint and provide an outcome within 30 days we are not required to provide an acknowledgement and outcome separately.

We will endeavour to clearly explain what we have done to resolve your data protection complaint and, where appropriate, any actions we have taken as a result. If we think we have complied with data protection law, we will explain this in detail to you. We will provide enough information to help you understand how we have reached our conclusion.

At this stage, if you remain dissatisfied with what we have said and how we have investigated your data protection complaint, we can arrange for our decision to be reviewed by arranging for someone else from our Management Team, who is entirely unconnected with your data protection complaint, to review how it was handled and the decision taken.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The ICO can be contacted using the following details:
The Information Commissioner’s Office
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
You can also call the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113.
Opening hours: Mon – Fri, 9am-5pm.
Please note that the ICO can only deal with complaints about data protection.

James Murray Solicitors. 41 Merton Road Bootle, Liverpool L20 7AP Tel : 0151 933 3333 & Suite 58, 5th Floor, 3a Bridgewater Street, Liverpool L1 OAR Tel: 0151 207 9910
info@jamesmurraylaw.com www.jamesmurraylaw.com
Authorised & Regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under numbers 74277 and 657637