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Chambers focuses on providing a first-class service to its clients at all times. However, if you believe that our professionalism has fallen short and wish to complain, please advise us as soon as possible. Your complaint can be made through your solicitor or directly to Chambers.
A complainant must be one of the following:
a) an individual;
b) a business or enterprise that was a micro-enterprise (European Union definition) when it referred the complaint to the authorised person13;
c) a charity that had an annual income net of tax of less than £1 million when it referred the complaint to the authorised person;
d) a club/association/organisation, the affairs of which are managed by its members/a committee/a committee of its members, that had an annual income net of tax of less than £1 million when it referred the complaint to the authorised person;
e) a trustee of a trust that had an asset value of less than £1 million when it referred the complaint to the authorised person; or
f) a personal representative or beneficiary of the estate of a person who, before they died, had not referred the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman.
Where the complaint is about a barrister who was instructed by a solicitor on behalf of a consumer, the consumer can complain to the ombudsman, but the solicitor cannot.
A complainant can authorise someone else in writing (including an authorised person) to act for the complainant in pursuing a complaint, but the Legal Ombudsman remains free to contact the complainant direct where it considers that appropriate.
Complaints can be made by telephone or in writing.
If your complaint concerns a barrister, please contact the Senior Clerk on 020 7410 2000. If the complaint relates to the Senior Clerk, you should contact our Head of Chambers, Jason Beer KC. In the event the complaints concerns the Head of Chambers, the Chair of the Management Committee will be substituted.
The person you contact will record the details of your complaint and what you would like to be taken. Please let us know if you need any reasonable adjustments to enable us to properly consider your claim. We will discuss your concerns with you and aim to resolve them promptly. If the complaint can be resolved to your satisfaction, we will record the outcome and provide you with written confirmation to the same effect.
If your complaint cannot be resolved to your satisfaction, you will be invited to write to us within the next seven days so that the complaint can be formally investigated.
If you are writing to Chambers regarding your complaint, please set out the following details:
Your name and address;
Which member of Chambers/staff you are complaining about;
The date and details of the complaint; and
How you wish the complaint to be resolved.
Please address your letter to the Senior Clerk. We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within a maximum of five working days and provide details of how your complaint will be processed, and by whom. We would expect to advise you within 28 working days of the outcome of the investigation. If it is likely to take longer than this period, we will write notifying you of this fact, explain why and provide a revised completion date.
Complaints regarding a barrister’s competence and professional conduct are investigated by the Senior Clerk and a senior, experienced member of Chambers. You are entitled, when advised of the investigating barrister, to ask in writing for an alternative barrister, giving reasons for your request. Complaints concerning staff and client care matters will be investigated by the Senior Clerk and/or Chambers Director. Complaints concerning the Senior Clerk will be investigated by a senior member of the Chambers’ Management Committee.
All investigations will be carried out as quickly and efficiently as is reasonably possible; you should be aware that diary commitments may delay the procedure but everything will be done to expedite the investigation. In the event that neither the Head of Chambers nor the Chair of Management Committee had conducted the investigation, the background and conclusions of the investigation regarding the complaint, together with a recommendation(s) for the resolution of the complaint, will be put to the Head of Chambers or the Chair of Management Committee for their ultimate decision and sanction. The Head of Chambers or Chair of Management Committee will write to you once the matter has been investigated and:
If found unjustified, explain why.
If found justified, set out his proposals for resolving the complaint.
Provide details of the Bar Standards Board’s complaint procedure.
In the event that the investigation has been undertaken by the Head of Chambers or the Chair of Management Committee , that person will write to you giving you the same information as set out above.
A copy of the letter will be provided to the barrister/member of staff who is the subject of the complaint.
All conversations and documents shall be deemed confidential and disclosed only to the extent necessary. Disclosure will be as necessary to the Head of Chambers, members of our Management Committee and anyone involved in the complaint and/or its investigation. This will include the barrister or member of staff whom you have complained about, the Senior Clerk, the senior member investigating the complaint and the Head of Chambers. You should be aware that the Bar Standards Board is entitled to inspect the documents and seek information about the complaint when discharging its auditing and monitoring functions.
As part of our commitment to client care we make written records of any complaint and retain all documents and correspondence generated by the complaint for seven years. Our Management Committee reviews complaint records with a view to improving service standards wherever possible.
If you are unhappy with the outcome of our investigation you may take up your complaint with the Legal Ombudsman, the independent complaints body for complaints about lawyers, at the conclusion of our consideration of your complaint.
Please note that the Legal Ombudsman is governed by a scheme that can be found here: Legal Ombudsman Scheme Rules.
The time limits for complaints to the Ombudsman are to be found in the Scheme at paragraph 4.
By way of summary, the Ombudsman is not able to consider your complaint until it has first been investigated by Chambers save in the following circumstances
Time limits for final response:
a) the complaint has not been resolved to the complainant’s satisfaction within eight weeks of being made to the authorised person.
This time limit applies only if the authorised person’s written response to a complaint included prominently:
b) an ombudsman considers that there are exceptional reasons to consider the complaint sooner, or without it having been made first to the authorised person; or
c) where an ombudsman considers that in-house resolution is not possible due to irretrievable breakdown in the relationship between an authorised person and the person making the complaint but only if the conditions in (a) are satisfied, a complainant must ordinarily refer the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of the date of that written response.
An ombudsman may decide that the Legal Ombudsman should consider the complaint where the authorised person has refused to consider it, or where delay would harm the complainant.
You should also be aware of the following time limits.
Time limits from act or omission:
Ordinarily, the complainant must refer the complaint to the Legal Ombudsman no later than: – one year from the act/omission; or
– one year from when the complainant should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
In relation to the above:
a) where a complaint is referred by 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 period runs from when the deceased should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint; and
b) when the complainant (or the deceased) should reasonably have known there was a cause for complaint will be assessed on the basis of the complainant’s (or the deceased’s) own knowledge, disregarding what the complainant (or the deceased) might have been told if they had sought advice.
If an ombudsman considers that it is fair and reasonable in all the circumstances, they may extend any of these time limits to the extent that they consider fair.
The following link is to the decision data on the Legal Ombudsman’s website: Ombudsman decision data | Legal Ombudsman
You can write to the Legal Ombudsman at:
Office of the Legal Ombudsman for England and Wales
PO Box 6167
Slough SL1 0EH
Tel: 0300 555 0333
