At Burnell Chambers, we are committed to delivering legal services of the highest standard. We trust that you will be satisfied with all aspects of the service you receive from us, but you do have the right to complain should you feel dissatisfied in any way. Clients are never charged for making a complaint or for a complaint investigation.
Should a concern or problem arise, it is in the best interest of all involved to resolve these at the earliest opportunity. As such, if something goes wrong or at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service, then you should contact the person you have been dealing with in the first instance to discuss this, so that they can do their best to resolve the problem. This helps the standards and service delivery to all clients to be continually improved. Complaints about employees, consultants or clerks which cannot be resolved directly with the individual should be raised with the Chambers Director.
The Chambers Director is Steven Newbery and he can be reached at:
snewbery@burnellchambers.co.uk
Formal complaints
Formal complaints should be made in writing by email, where possible, and addressed to the Chambers Director and marked ‘Complaint’ in the heading of the email or on the outside of the envelope. Your complaint can be sent to:
snewbery@burnellchambers.co.uk or by post to Steven Newbery, Burnell Chambers, 1A, Middle Temple, London EC4Y 9AA.
If it is not possible to make your complaint in writing, you should telephone chambers on
020 3576 1203 and make an appointment to speak to the Chambers Director stating that you wish to discuss a complaint.
The Chambers Director may give authority to an alternative appropriate person to deal with complaints on their behalf. The Chambers Director or person appointed for this purpose will liaise with the person with conduct of the matter for the business and the person making the complaint to discuss the issues raised and seek to reach an agreement on the resolution of the complaint.
Reasonable adjustments
If you require reasonable adjustments to be put in place due to a disability or vulnerability, please contact us and let us know and we will do our best to accommodate your needs. This may include sending the complaints procedure or communication in an alternative format.
Acknowledgment and investigation
Within 3 days of receipt of the complaint, you will be sent, in writing, by email if possible:
a. confirmation that the complaint has been received;
b. the name of the person appointed to deal with the complaint;
c. a description of that person’s role in the business;
d. a copy of or link to this Complaints Procedure; and Burnell Chambers Website Complaints Procedure – 15 June 2026 Page 2 of 2
e. the date by which you will next be contacted and by whom.
You may also be asked to confirm or explain the details set out in your complaint. Any conversations will be confirmed in writing.
Your complaint will be investigated fully before you receive an outcome to determine whether the evidence demonstrates if a reasonable service has been delivered.
It may be the case that more information is requested from you, to allow your concerns to be better addressed. This will happen within the initial 14 days of receiving the initial complaint.
As part of the investigation into the complaint, the Chambers Director, or person appointed for this purpose, may liaise with the person who delivered the legal services and the person making the complaint, discuss the issues raised with each (so far as each is willing to do so) and seek to reach agreement on disposal of the complaint.
Reply
Within 7 days of completing the investigation, you will be sent a detailed reply to your complaint. This will include suggestions for the resolution of the matter.
The reply will set out:
a. the nature and scope of the investigation;
b. the conclusion on each complaint and the basis for the conclusion; and
c. if we find that you are justified in your complaint, the proposals for resolving your complaint.
Outcomes
There are several possible outcomes from a complaint investigation into service delivery, we have broken these down into the following categories:
- Your complaint, or parts of it, may be upheld. You are likely to receive an explanation of the reasons for the lack of effective service delivery and you may be offered:
- an apology;
- an assurance on future service delivery;
- an agreement for specific tasks to be undertaken;
- a partial or full refund; and/or
- compensation
- Your complaint, or parts of it, may not be upheld. Following an impartial review, it may be determined that the service you have received was reasonable. You will receive an explanation of the reasons for the decision.
You can find information on the Legal Ombudsman’s approach to outcomes in their
Guidance on Remedies.
Decision review
Once you have considered the reply, if you are still unsatisfied you should get back in contact. If there is time before the Legal Ombudsman Rules expire, a review of the decision and suggestion for resolution will be arranged, with an independent barrister or solicitor. Thiswill be completed within 14 days from the date of the request for a further review.
Final position
Once the independent review has concluded, we will write to you with confirmation of the final position on your complaint, along with the reasons. This will be completed within 5 days of us receiving the outcome of the individual review. You will also be provided with the name and address of the Legal Ombudsman. If you are still not satisfied, you can contact them about your complaint (see below).
If any of the timescales above need to be altered, you will be informed and provided with the reason for the change.
In any event the entire complaints process will not take longer than 8 weeks. You will receive updates at each of these stages on the progress of the complaint and if there needs to be any change to the timescales.
If you are still not happy with the result
If you feel the complaint has not been resolved to a satisfactory standard, then you may have the right for the complaint to be independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates problems about poor service delivery from lawyers.
There are limitations on who can make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman and they publish this information in their
Scheme Rules.
Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If so, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:
- Within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint; and
- No more than one year from the date of act/omission; or
- No more than one year from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
More information about the Legal Ombudsman can be obtained through the following:
Decision Data
You can access decision data on the Legal Ombudsman website
here.
This shows legal service providers which received an ombudsman decision in the previous 12 months, and whether the Legal Ombudsman required the provider to give the consumer a remedy.
You can contact the Legal Ombudsman for alternative methods of receiving this data on 0300 555 0333 or email at
enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Regulatory matters
Whilst the Legal Ombudsman will look independently at complaints about service, if you believe there have been any breaches of the rules governing barristers, then you can ask the Bar Standards Board to investigate.
You can find out more information, including how to report your concerns here:
Reporting a concern to the BSB
Alternative dispute resolution
Alternative complaints bodies, such as (
https://www.promediate.co.uk/) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should we both wish to use such a scheme. We do not agree to use alternative bodies and consider that the Legal Ombudsman fulfils this purpose satisfactorily.
Mediator Complaints Policy
The following complaints policy applies to all mediators (including any CEDR Accredited Mediator) who is a member of Burnell Chambers.
Each individual mediator will investigate any complaints made against them; and any mediation Provider will investigate complaints made against them or against mediators appointed by them.
The complaints policy is as follows:
- All complaints will be acknowledged in writing within 5 working days of receipt either by the mediator or a duly appointed representative of the mediator.
- All complaints will be investigated and responded to within 21 working days of receipt. On occasion further time may be required, in which case the complainant shall be notified of this in writing (together with the additional amount of time required).
- The investigation will be carried out by somebody other than the mediator that the complaint relates to, and this will be carried out by a member of Burnell Chambers and/or by the Chambers Director.
- If the response to the complaint is not accepted the complainant can appeal to the Civil Mediation Council (CMC) on certain grounds. Details of the CMC’s appeal processes can be found here: https://civilmediation.org/for-the-public/complaints/
