Complaining about an Employment Lawyer

Vincent.waldorf

Hi All,

I recently went to see an employment lawyer about ta settlement agreement to which I decided not to take the settlement. The lawyer spoke to me in a very rude way and he said the following:

- I should have agreed my communications with him before acting as is looked unprofessional (I said his services were no longer needed)
- he said I had wasted his time as he could have spent time with paying clients (to which I was one)
- he said my fees were a drop in the ocean for his firm anyway
-he did not treat me like a client at all during this low point in my life but spoke mostly about the fees etc.

I would like to make a complaint but I don’t know who to complain to, would anyone happen to know? I had a look and is there like a registered log so other people can see? I was thinking about those Review websites but the companies tend to pay those websited for filtered review. I am thinking maybe the Legal Obudsmen or soemthing?


Thanks, Vincent

Bogalot

vincent.waldorf wrote: »

Hi All,

I recently went to see an employment lawyer about ta settlement agreement to which I decided not to take the settlement. The lawyer spoke to me in a very rude way and he said the following:

- I should have agreed my communications with him before acting as is looked unprofessional (I said his services were no longer needed)
- he said I had wasted his time as he could have spent time with paying clients (to which I was one)
- he said my fees were a drop in the ocean for his firm anyway
-he did not treat me like a client at all during this low point in my life but spoke mostly about the fees etc.

I would like to make a complaint but I don’t know who to complain to, would anyone happen to know? I had a look and is there like a registered log so other people can see? I was thinking about those Review websites but the companies tend to pay those websited for filtered review. I am thinking maybe the Legal Obudsmen or soemthing?


Thanks, Vincent

In the first instance you should complain to the managing partner. If you are still not satisfied you can go to the ombudsman.

What do you want out of it? The best you're going to get is an apology. I'd also be interested to hear the full story, what was said to prompt his response?

Vincent.waldorf

If I'm honest I don't think he even earned the 1hr fee so ideally a waiver of the fee. Also I think the way he treated me was really bad! The partner level lawyer I used was very unprofessional.

I said to him that I didn't get the terms of the settlement I wanted so I didn't want to take the then he said he has wasted his time with me.

He also sent me an email with £00 fees, a typo and I called him to say did he mean to put no fee and said that "you know that is incorrect. It's obviously a typo. His work was full of typos!

Vincent.waldorf

Bogalot wrote: »

In the first instance you should complain to the managing partner. If you are still not satisfied you can go to the ombudsman.

What do you want out of it? The best you're going to get is an apology. I'd also be interested to hear the full story, what was said to prompt his response?

Also does the financial ombudsman actually do anything?

Mersey_2

vincent.waldorf wrote: »

Hi All,

I recently went to see an employment lawyer about ta settlement agreement to which I decided not to take the settlement. The lawyer spoke to me in a very rude way and he said the following:

- I should have agreed my communications with him before acting as is looked unprofessional (I said his services were no longer needed)
- he said I had wasted his time as he could have spent time with paying clients (to which I was one)
- he said my fees were a drop in the ocean for his firm anyway
-he did not treat me like a client at all during this low point in my life but spoke mostly about the fees etc.

I would like to make a complaint but I don’t know who to complain to, would anyone happen to know? I had a look and is there like a registered log so other people can see? I was thinking about those Review websites but the companies tend to pay those websited for filtered review. I am thinking maybe the Legal Obudsmen or soemthing?


Thanks, Vincent

This link sets out whether to complain to the SRA or Legal Ombudsman:


www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page


Usually you should complain to a Partner/Director first, but you can complain to the Ombudsman direct if you have no confidence in the firm or it's a Partner/Director you are complaining about.


Remedies will usually be an apology and/or a refund of fees, or compensation as well in a minority of cases.

TBagpuss

As others have said, you can initially complain to the firm directly; normally the information about who to complain to will be in your client care letter and/or on the firm's website.

If you are not happy with the response you can you can then make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman.

agrinnall

vincent.waldorf wrote: »

Also does the financial ombudsman actually do anything?

It doesn't matter whether they do or not as they won't be looking at your complaint, as stated it's the Legal Ombudsman who you would complain to.

DCFC79

vincent.waldorf wrote: »

Also does the financial ombudsman actually do anything?

Why is it you have posted under 2 users in the thread ?

JJG

DCFC79 wrote: »

Why is it you have posted under 2 users in the thread ?

Both a variant of vincent.waldorf

Takeaway_Addict

This thread seems very familiar to one last year...

steampowered

Is it really worth pursuing this, given that you only saw him for a single 1 hour introductory meeting and decided not to instruct him further?

Sounds like a waste of time to me but each to their own.