Legal Notices and Complaints Procedure
Legal and regulatory information
Fletcher Legal Services Limited, trading as Fletcher Sports Law and / or Fletcher Commercial Law (the “Firm”) is a limited company registered in England and Wales, with registered number 07122126. The Firm is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under number 650034.
Professional indemnity insurance
In accordance with the disclosure requirements of the Provision of Services Regulations 2009, the professional indemnity insurers for Fletcher Legal Services Limited are Travelers Insurance Company Limited.
Financial Services
The Firm is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority.
We do however undertake certain activities in relation to investments which are limited in scope and incidental to our provision legal services, or which may reasonably be regarded as a necessary part of our legal services.
Any investment decision is for you (as a client) to make and no communication by us should be treated as an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity. In circumstances where the Firm provides legal advice to you on a particular investment, it is for you (as a client) to obtain the necessary financial advice from a regulated third-party.
Anti-money laundering
The Firm may require clients to provide documents and information concerning the contracting client entity and related persons, entities or affiliates, in order to comply with relevant anti-money laundering laws and regulations. The Firm may be prevented from carrying out your instructions if we are unable to meet our requirements, which may include verifying the identities of your ultimate beneficial owners.
We may be required by law or regulation to report to a governmental or regulatory authority our knowledge and/or suspicion that certain criminal offences have been committed, regardless of whether such an offence has been committed by a client of ours or by a third party. We may not be able to discuss such reports with you because of restrictions imposed by those laws and regulations, and we may have to cease acting for you in those circumstances. You agree that the Firm will not be responsible for any adverse consequences you may suffer as a result of our compliance with such laws and regulations, whether caused by our inactivity or otherwise.
Client audit requests
If the Firm are required by any governmental or regulatory body, or by your auditing accountants or any other service provider appointed by you, to produce documents or provide information on any engagement, we shall be entitled to bill you for the work involved (and any disbursements or expenses incurred) at the rates notified to you for the relevant matter.
In response to any request to provide information to your auditors, our policy is to comply with the laws and regulations applicable to us and in particular with the guidance from the Law Society of England & Wales.
Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013
If you have instructed us as an individual to act for you in your personal capacity, under the Consumer Contracts (information, cancellation and additional charges) Regulations 2013, you have the right to cancel your instructions within 14 days of receiving our client engagement letter. You can cancel your instruction by any clear statement setting out your decision to cancel. Once we have started work on your file you may be required to pay reasonable costs for work done up to the point of cancellation.
Complaints Procedure
We are committed to providing a high quality legal service to all our clients.
If you are not satisfied with any of the services that we provide, or you have a complaint about an invoice that we have sent to you, please contact us with the details. This will help us to improve our standards.
What will happen next?
1. In the first instance, please contact the fee earner dealing with your matter. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within 3 business days of receiving it.
2. We will then start to investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing your complaint to our client care director (currently Paul Fletcher who can be contacted on 0161 513 7100 or at paul.fletcher@
3. The person investigating your complaint will then decide an appropriate course of action, which could involve arranging a discussion with you either face to face or over the telephone with a view to aiming to resolve your complaint, or writing a detailed response to your complaint. He/ she will either invite you to a meeting / teleconference, or advise you that you will be sent a detailed response, within 14 days of your complaint being received.
4. If a meeting or teleconference is arranged, the investigating member of staff will write to you to confirm what was discussed and any solutions he/ she agreed with you, within 3 business days of the meeting/ teleconference taking place.
5. If you do not want a meeting or teleconference to discuss your complaint, or the investigating member of staff has advised that you will receive a detailed response to your complaint, he/ she will send you a detailed response to your claim within 28 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter. This will include any suggestions for resolving the matter.
6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you can contact us again and we will arrange for someone unconnected with the matter to review the investigating member of staff`s decision.
7. We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
8. If you are still not satisfied, then if you are an individual or otherwise have the right to refer to the Legal Ombudsman – generally businesses do not but please contact the Legal Ombudsman to ascertain whether you are one of the exceptions to this general rule -you can then contact the Legal Ombudsman about your complaint. Normally, you may bring a complaint to the Legal ombudsman within 6 months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint, or within 6 years of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring (or outside of this period, within 3 years of when you should reasonably have been aware of it).
9. The Legal Ombudsman can provide more information. The contact details are:
PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ.
enquiries@legalombudsman.org.
0300 555 0333.
10. Please note that if you are a client and your complaint is about an invoice that we have sent to you, you may also apply to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors’ Act 1974. If all or part of any bill remains unpaid, we may be entitled to charge interest.
11. If you are concerned about any matters involving this firm, or a fee earner, such as conduct or ethics, you may report these concerns to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (the “SRA”). Details of how to do this can be found at the SRA’s website (http://www.sra.org.uk/
The Firm is committed to providing high quality legal advice and client care. In the event of a problem with or a query about the way in which your matter is being handled or if you feel that our services can be improved, then, in the first instance, please contact the person with whom you are dealing with at the Firm. We will do our best to resolve any issues at this stage and, if applicable, we will confirm our complaints handling procedure in writing (which is available to clients at any time on request) and is also set out in our standard terms of business.
If, for any reason, we are unable to resolve any problem between us, you may be able to ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the issue (write to: PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ; or email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk; or phone 0300 555 0333). If you do wish to refer a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, it should be done within six months of our final response to your complaint and within six years of the act or omission that caused the complaint or, if outside this period, within three years of when you should reasonably have known about the relevant act or omission.
The Legal Ombudsman may refer your complaint to the SRA if they are not the correct body to consider the matter, as the Legal Ombudsman’s services are only available for certain types of complaints and complainants. For full details, please visit: https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/helping-the-public/make-a-complaint/ and https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page. Note also that if you are a client and your complaint is about our invoices, you may also apply to the court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors’ Act 1974. If all or part of any bill remains unpaid, we may be entitled to charge interest.
Client Account and Interest
Pursuant to the SRA Accounts Rules, the Firm’s policy is to account to our clients for a sum in lieu of interest on a fair and reasonable basis. Client monies will be deposited in a general client account (an instant access account in which amounts for different clients are pooled). In any event, it is unlikely that a client will receive as much interest as might have been obtained had the funds been invested by the client itself. Due to the administrative costs involved we will not pay interest if the sum calculated is less than £50 in total for the full period during which we hold your money. Interest will be calculated at a rate 0.25% below the rate paid by Firm’s bank from time to time.
VAT Registration
Fletcher Legal Services is registered for VAT purposes under number 183 323 613
Phone: 0161 513 7100 | Email: info@fletchersportslaw.com | Address: Fletcher Sports Law,Warrant House, No 1, The High Street, Altrincham Cheshire WA14 1PZ