Butt Solicitors Complaints and Data Protection
Thank you for instructing this firm in relation to your case. Everyone here at Butt Solicitors will do their best to see that everything proceeds smoothly and ensure that every effort is made to achieve a satisfactory outcome of your case.The purpose of this letter is to inform you of the way in which this firm is organised and what you should do if you are not satisfied with the service provided to you.This firm specialises in Criminal Litigation at all levels. The firm has been awarded a franchise in the category of Criminal Litigation and is also a contracted supplier with the Legal Aid Agency.
RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUR CASE & SUPERVISION
Nadeem Butt is a Solicitor and Partner in this firm and will have the overall responsibility for your file. He will take all the important decisions on your case and be responsible for the advice that you are given.He will also take the responsibility to supervise all of the work done on your file, together with his Partner, Rozina Butt, who is also a Solicitor.
WHAT WE CAN DO FOR YOU
We can attend police station interviews and all other interviews conducted under caution pursuant to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE). We can represent you in court, we can advise you on whether you have an appeal and represent you at an appeal.Our offices are open from 9.30am to 5.00pm and there is an emergency out of hours service for those who have been arrested. In the first instance please call the number of the office dealing with your case, which will be on the letters sent to you, by that office. If you call that number out of hours it will give you details of the office mobile number.If for any reason that number is not answered you should ask the police to contact us through the defence solicitors call centre who have an extensive list of contact numbers for members of the firm.If the police advise you that it is not possible to contact us out of hours you should insist that they keep trying as we may be unable to respond immediately but will be able to contact you within a short period of time.
FUNDING OF YOUR CASE
A. Legal aid
We will be happy to carry out an assessment as to whether you will be entitled to government help with your legal fees. If you want to apply for legal aid we will need your national insurance number and details of any benefits that you receive. If you are not in receipt of benefits and you are working you will need to provide us with your original wage slips. It will help if you can bring those to any initial appointments.
Legal aid is free for police stations and those under 18 before the criminal courts and does not depend on your income or savings, provided that your case is deemed serious enough to need a lawyer at public expense.
Legal aid, with respect to criminal proceedings at court, is subject to the interests of justice criterion and it is also means tested, whether your case is heard at the Magistrates’ court or Crown court.
If you are 18 years of age or over and your case stays at the Magistrates’ court you will only be granted legal aid if you pass the interests of justice criterion (your case is deemed sufficiently serious or complex to justify a lawyer being appointed at public expense) and the means test (your income and capital will be assessed in accordance with the regulations). If you are granted legal aid and you plead guilty or are found guilty the court will usually order you to pay towards the defence and prosecution costs.
If you are 18 years of age or over and your case is “sent” or “committed” to the Crown Court and you are granted legal aid then, subject to the means test, you may have to pay a number of contributions towards the cost of your defence. If your means are deemed sufficient to pay towards your defence costs at the court then the Legal Aid Agency will send you an “income contribution order” setting out how much you need to pay each month and for how long. Once you have paid those contributions you will not have to pay anything else until the conclusion of your case.
At the conclusion of the case, if you are acquitted you will be entitled to have any contributions refunded which will include interest. You will not be liable for any other costs.
At the conclusion of the case, if you are convicted and you do not have savings or equity of over £30,000 you will not have to make any further payments.
However, if you are convicted and you do have savings or equity of £30,000 or more, then a costs order will be made against you. This means that you will have to pay some, or all, of the defence costs for your case unless the contributions that you have already paid are sufficient to cover this cost. The judge has no power to interfere with this order however the judge can make an additional order against you for payment towards the prosecution costs.
If the order is not paid then there is a range of enforcement actions that can be taken against you which can include a charge on your property. Interest on unpaid orders can be charged.
If you are applying for criminal legal aid, in assessing your means the Legal Aid Agency will take into account certain expenses. Generally these expenses are those to do with essential costs for housing, heating, food and allowances children or other dependants.
If you have a partner who lives with you their income and capital will also be included in the assessment and they will have to complete and sign their part of the application form.
If you are refused legal aid on the basis that your means are too high, or you receive a contribution order that you cannot afford to pay, you can make a hardship application to try to reduce your disposable income so that legal aid is granted or the contribution is less. We can help you with this.
If you need any further information about how this works please do not hesitate to ask and we will send you a leaflet published by the Courts Service.
B. Private Costs
If you do not qualify for legal aid you will be liable for any costs for work we have carried out on your behalf. We will be happy to discuss an affordable way for you to pay for us to represent you.
Either we can agree a fixed fee for a specific amount of work, such as representing you at a court hearing or hearings, or we can estimate how much your case is likely to cost and ask you for money on account of our likely charges. Usually, you will be asked for this money as cleared funds in advance of any work being commenced.
When you first make a payment on account, you must provide us with proof of your identity which will include either a passport or driving license along with a recent utility bill or bank statement confirming your current address. We are required by Anti-Money Laundering Regulations to keep copies of these documents.
We will set out at the start of your case the agreement on funding. We will regularly update you where money has been paid on account of the costs to date and of any likely future costs.
If you are successful in your case we will apply for your legal costs to be reimbursed either by the court or the other side.
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO
You will need to contact us as soon as you need advice. If it is not an emergency then please call us during office hours as our office line is used out of hours to give urgent advice to those who are being detained in police stations.
You will need to provide us with information to support any application for legal aid including your national insurance number, proof of benefits, wage slips, mortgage/rent statements. You will need to complete and return the forms that we send to you.
Failure to provide these may result in legal aid being refused or revoked which will mean we will be unable to represent you.
You must keep us updated with your contact details including any email addresses or mobile telephone numbers. These are important, as we may need to provide you with urgent information at short notice such as court listings or changes to appointments.
You must tell us of any upcoming dates that you are due to attend police stations, courts or other relevant appointments. You must attend your appointments and hearings on time and if you are delayed or cannot attend then please let us know as soon as possible.
If you fail to answer bail granted by the police or court without good reason (such as you were medically or physically incapable of attending) you may be committing a separate Bail Act offence, for which you can be imprisoned or fined any you will damage your chances of being granted bail in the future.
PROSECUTION COSTS
We must also advise you that if you are found guilty or plead guilty after you have been charged with an offence, then the Court can order that you make a contribution towards the costs depending on the complexity of the matter and your financial circumstances.
COMPENSATION
The court can order any defendant to pay compensation if they feel it is appropriate if you plead guilty or are found guilty of an offence.
COMPLAINTS
If you ever become dissatisfied with the service provided, then we would like you to tell us about it. Any complaint will be properly investigated with a view to bringing it to a satisfactory conclusion.
If you do have a complaint, you can raise it with Nadeem Butt, either in writing or over the phone, or you can arrange an appointment to see him. He will then investigate this and report back to you. If you are still not satisfied with the outcome, then you can raise your complaint with Rozina Butt who is a Partner in this firm.
We have an official Complaints Procedure document, which can be made available on request, outlining our procedures and time scales of dealing with complaints. Please be advised that we can take up to eight weeks to investigate your complaint.
At the conclusion of the complaint if you remain unsatisfied, you are entitled to complain to the Legal Ombudsman. The time scale for this is 6 months from the conclusion of your complaint, and after having received a written response from us outlining details of the Legal Ombudsman and being warned that the complaint must be referred to them within 6 months. If this is not expressed within our written response, then you can refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman no later than one year from the act/omission; or one year from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
The contact details of the Legal Ombudsman are:
Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH Tel: 0300 555 0333 Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Complaint about our Bill: You are entitled to make a complaint about the firm’s bill. You may also have the right to object to the bill of costs by applying to a court for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. If all or part of the bill remains unpaid the firm may charge interest. You are entitled to a copy of the firm’s complaints procedure upon request.
DATA PROTECTION
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) gives you control over your personal data and makes sure it is not processed if you do not give consent, unless there are necessary reasons in the legislation or for public interest. All use of information from you is subject to your instructions, the Data Protection Act 2018, and our duty of confidentiality.
Any individual whose data is held by the firm may make what is called a ‘subject access request.’ This is a request to see what data is actually held about them. You have a right to be informed and be given your information in a clear and concise manner, access your personal information, be informed of the purposes of the data processing, have your information corrected if it’s incorrect, object to or restrict the processing of your information, have your information deleted, prevent or query automated processing, the right to lodge a complaint with the ICO or another supervisory authority and have the right to easily move, copy or transfer your personal information.
The information you provide us is primarily used for the provision of legal services to you, and for related purposes including updating records, analysis for management purposes, statutory returns and regulatory compliance. Your information can be held by us on computer and/or paper files and records and may be transferred internally. Our work may require us to share information with third parties such as expert witnesses and other professional advisers.
You can obtain further information from the Information Commissioners Office, and if you are still unsure of your rights then please contact us immediately for these to be explained in person.
MONEY LAUNDERING & PROCEEDS OF CRIME ACT
Under new legislation all solicitors are now obliged to report any person who they know or suspect is involved in money laundering or any person who has acquired, retained, used or controlled property, which is the proceeds of a crime. Although we treat all disclosures between solicitors and client as strictly confidential, we would like to take this opportunity to inform you that we are absolutely obliged to report any such suspicion which may be revealed during the course of our discussions. For our records, it would be beneficial if you could provide us with some kind of identification which we can keep on file, like a driving licence or a passport. If you are paying for your case privately it is not possible for us to accept more than £500 cash at one time.
CONCLUSION OF YOUR CASE
At the conclusion of your case your file will be placed in our firm’s central file storage system. Your file will be retained there for a period of six years, from the end of your case. After completion of the storage period, your file will be destroyed.
Please note that the reference on the attached letter is your file number. It would help us, if you contact this firm again, to produce this letter and the reference which will help us locate your file promptly. There will be no need for you to notify us of any change of address, but obviously if you do move address and you instruct us again in the future, we will then take your new address.
In addition, please find enclosed our firms Quality Assurance Questionnaire, which we would kindly ask you to take a few moments to complete and send back to us once your case concludes, in order for us to monitor your satisfaction with our service.
If you have any queries regarding the contents of this letter, please do not hesitate to contact us.