Client Care Information

This information sets out our terms of business. It lets you know what you can and should expect of us. It tells you who we are, what we do and what we will need from you. You may know this as a ‘client care’ statement.

 

Introduction

Frazer Bradshaw Solicitors aims to provide an efficient, effective and high-quality service to all our clients. Below you will find details of the client care arrangements which we have in place to help us to achieve that aim and the terms upon which Frazer Bradshaw Solicitors (“we” or “us”) conduct business with you.

 

Our relationship with you

As you are likely to have contact with all members of our Firm, we would like to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves.

Frazer Bradshaw is the Principal and owner of the firm who has overall responsibility for your case. He will be assisted in the day-to-day conduct of your case by other members of the firm. He is a Duty Solicitor.

Shupai Malianga is also a Duty Solicitor

Faith Moon is an experienced case worker.

You are likely to speak to Milne or Faith when you call our offices.

Julie Hardy-McBride is the Practice Manager.

Frazer and Shupai are Supervising Solicitors for all other members of the Firm.

On occasion it will not be possible for one of the above-named members of the firm to attend the police station or court with you. If this happens we will try to inform you before the attendance, although this may not always be possible. We use a small, trusted team of independent accredited police station representatives to attend police stations and can also call upon a number of barristers to attend court when we are unavoidably detained and so unable to attend with you.

In addition to any advice which we give you, we will discuss and agree with you any action to be taken.

We will also keep you informed of any changes and developments in your case.

In order to minimise costs, we will not normally write to you to tell you that nothing has happened on your case. However, if nothing has happened for a considerable time, and in any event at least every six months, we will write to you to tell you why.

 

Communication

We are happy to discuss your case with you at any time by telephone, but we would urge you to call us in office hours where possible. Our offices are open from 9:00am to 5:00pm. Calls outside office hours will be answered if possible, but it is likely that we will not be able to answer queries without reference to your file, which will only be accessible when our offices are open. Our office number, 020 8466 5588, should be used if you or someone you know is in detention and requires assistance urgently.

We aim to be available to answer calls whenever the office is open. However, if we are unavailable we will return telephone calls as soon as reasonably possible. Usually we will be able to answer your query immediately, however, if you wish to speak to a particular person and they are not available, you can leave a message with a colleague. If your call is, or appears to be, urgent, we will return the call as soon as we become available no matter what time it is. You should leave details of how to contact you and how late we can call you. Other calls will be returned as soon as possible. We ask you to take into account the fact that the person responsible for your case may be dealing with other matters and may not always be able to return your call on the same day. We aim to return calls within 24 hours in any event.

If you write to us we will reply by return, either dealing with your query, or acknowledging receipt of your letter and giving you a time period in which we will reply fully and the reason for this delay in response. This may be because you have asked for something which may take time to ascertain, or to prepare something which cannot, for some reason, be dealt with immediately.

 

Use of Third Parties

All third parties, such as Agents at the police station, Solicitors at court, Barristers and Experts are selected by the firm as being particularly effective in their field.

In the vast majority of cases it is expected that a Solicitor or other member of the firm will be able to represent you at the police station or the court. However, there may be occasions when it is necessary to instruct a third party. These may be Solicitors, Barristers or Accredited Police Station Representatives. Where possible we will consult you in advance of the instruction of a third party to ask if you have any preference.

In addition, it may be necessary to instruct Experts to consider matters outside our expertise, such as accountants or medical practitioners. We will consult you about such Experts before their instruction.

 

Costs

Assistance with Costs

The majority of work conducted by us is funded by the Government, either under the Police Station Advice and Assistance scheme or under a Representation Order. You may know these schemes as Legal Aid.

We will advise you at the start of your case whether funding is available and will make the necessary applications on your behalf. However, in order to do this, it may be necessary to request that you provide certain information.

Other sources of funding e.g. through your union or federation, may also sometimes be available. We will discuss this if it appears relevant and would ask you to make enquiries where you consider this may be a possibility.

You should read the section below “Defence Costs – Crown Court Trials” regarding the possibility that you will have to pay a contribution towards the costs of your defence if your matter is sent to the Crown Court for trial.

 

If Assistance is not Available

In certain matters, assistance may not be available to cover our costs. We will advise you of this as soon as it becomes apparent. If you wish to instruct us to continue to act we will then advise you of our fees.

Our fees are calculated in accordance with the complexity of your case or matter and the likely time to be spent on it by us.

Our standard fees are available on request.

Our fees are fixed. This means that, once we have quoted you a fee and you have accepted that quote and paid us, we will not ask you for any more money for the case. This does not include any appeal you may decide to pursue if you are found guilty or disagree with any sentence. It also does not cover any work outside the scope of the fee, being limited to representation at court.

The fee is payable on your instructing us to act for you in a private capacity (i.e. where we have informed you that publicly funded representation is unlikely or unavailable). This fee covers our representation until the conclusion of the case at the Magistrates’ Court. It may be necessary to instruct a barrister to attend if a Solicitor from the firm cannot attend a court hearing, which will be paid from this fixed fee as an overhead of the firm.

You should be aware that once you agree to pay our fee, this is payable even if you subsequently decide that you no longer wish to instruct us.

 

Possible reimbursement

Magistrates’ Court Proceedings

If you are found not guilty or the case is discontinued against you in a magistrates’ court case then we may be in a position to make an application for your costs to be reimbursed by the Court. In this case the Court will assess the amount of work undertaken on your behalf and calculate the cost at set rates.

The rates the court uses are significantly less than our private rates and so you may not get all of your fee back.

 

Crown Court Proceedings

If in the crown court:

1. you have applied for legal aid and been refused and then have paid our private fees; and
2. are found not guilty or the case is discontinued by the prosecution

then we may be in a position to make an application for your costs to be reimbursed by the Court. In this case the Court will assess the amount of work undertaken on your behalf and calculate the cost at set rates.

The rates the court uses are significantly less than our private rates and so you may not get all of your fee back.

 

Disbursements

We may also incur expenses on your behalf, for example, Experts’ fees. These expenses are called disbursements.

It is unusual for there to be any disbursements for cases at the Magistrates’ Court, but if it becomes apparent that there will be disbursements we will discuss this with you and make arrangements for you to pay these disbursements directly.

 

VAT

VAT will be added on our fees and shown on our invoices at the rate which applies when the work is done.

 

Terms of Payment

Our invoices are payable within 30 days of receipt by you and interest is charged on unpaid invoices from that date at the rate payable at the relevant time on court judgment debts (currently 8% per annum). Interest is charged on a daily basis.

We reserve the right to stop acting for you if our invoice is not paid. If this happens, you will still be responsible for paying the fixed fee as we have explained above.

The firm’s charging rates are reviewed annually with effect from 1 September in each year. We will advise you of any change.

If you have any query about the way our fees are calculated or about any invoice you receive from us, please contact the person dealing with your case or matter as soon as possible.

 

Other Costs for which you may be liable.

Prosecution Costs

At the conclusion of a court case in which you plead guilty or are found guilty, the prosecution will usually ask for their costs, or a proportion of them, to be paid by you. This is entirely separate from any penalty that the Court imposes for the actual offence. If that were to happen the Court would fix a specific figure and order to pay that either immediately at the end of the case or would give you time to pay by a series of contributions over a period of time.

 

Defence Costs – Crown Court Trials

If your case goes to the Crown Court for trial you will qualify for legally aided representation once you have completed an application form unless your income is above a certain amount. After you have been means tested, you may have to pay towards the cost of your defence. This could be from your income while the case is ongoing and/or from your capital, if you are convicted.

You will be asked to provide evidence of your income and assets. If you do not, your payments could be increased which would result in you paying more towards your defence costs. If you do not tell the truth on your legal aid application about your income, assets and expenditure you could be prosecuted.

You will not have to pay towards the costs of your case if you are under 18 when you make your application or if you receive any of the following benefits: income support, income-based jobseeker’s allowance, guaranteed state pension credit or income-related employment and support allowance.

You may have to pay towards the costs if your monthly disposable income is above a certain level. If this is the case, you will receive a Contribution Order from the court and you will have to make payments as required under the Order. The first payment will be due within 28 days of your case being committed, sent or transferred for trial.

You must tell the court about any changes to your financial circumstances during your case because a change may affect the amount you have to pay towards your defence costs. If you don’t think you can afford to pay, or you think that a mistake has been made, you can ask for a review of the amount the court has told you to pay.

At the end of the case, if you are found not guilty, any payments you have made will be refunded with interest. If you paid late or not at all and action was taken against you, the costs of this action will be deducted from the refund.

If you are found guilty, you may have to pay towards your defence costs from any capital assets you may have. This would only apply if:

• you have £30,000 or more of assets, for example: savings, equity in property, shares or Premium Bonds; and
• any payments you have already made have not covered your total defence costs.

You will be told at the end of your case if you have to make a payment from capital.

 

Confidentiality

Solicitors are under a professional and legal obligation to keep the affairs of clients confidential. This obligation, however, is subject to a statutory exception: recent legislation on money laundering and terrorist financing has placed solicitors under a legal duty in certain circumstances to disclose information to the National Criminal Intelligence Service. Where a solicitor knows or suspects that a transaction on behalf of a client involves money laundering, the solicitor may be required to make a money laundering disclosure. If this happens, we may not be able to inform you that a disclosure has been made or of the reasons for it because the law prohibits “tipping-off”.

 

Storage of papers and documents

After completing your case or matter, we will keep our file of papers in relation to it for 6 years after the date of the conclusion of the case. By instructing us, you expressly authorise us to destroy the file after that time and you should therefore ask us on completion of your case if you wish us to return any papers or documents to you. We will not be responsible for any losses which may arise from the destruction of your file after the 6 year period or for the loss or destruction of any documents or consequential losses caused by fire, flood or any other cause beyond our control.

If archived files or documents have to be taken out of storage or safe custody in connection with a current matter, we will not normally charge you for that. We will however make a charge for retrieving stored papers or documents in other circumstances and for any other time which we spend (for example, if you ask us to look through the documents) or expenses which we incur (for example, if you ask us to copy the documents or send them to you).

 

Problems with your case

If there is any aspect of our service with which you are unhappy and which you cannot resolve with the individual responsible for the matter, you should contact Frazer Bradshaw, who is the Partner of the firm. This can include your bill if you are paying for our services privately.

We will always try to resolve any problems which may arise. We have a complaints procedure, a copy of which will be supplied to you on request. If we are not able to resolve the problem, the Legal Ombudsman is an organisation which provides a complaints and redress scheme. We will provide you with full details if you request us to do so; their website can be found at www.legalombudsman.org.uk.

 

Termination

You may terminate your instructions to us at any time by writing to us. If your matter is covered by a Representation Order we will write to the court asking for the order to be withdrawn and you will then be able to represent yourself at subsequent hearings.

We may stop acting for you in certain circumstances. The most common reasons are that a conflict of interest has arisen between you and an existing client, or that we have been unable to contact you to provide instructions. We will give you reasonable notice, where possible, of our intention to cease acting for you.

Quality Standards

In order to have a contract with the government to provide legal aid, we have to allow the Legal Aid Agency to inspect our files. In addition we have to pass an audit (there are two types and we have chosen the Lexcel quality standard of the Law Society) which involves an outside organisation inspecting our files.

This could mean that your file is selected for checking.

You may be aware of regulations which control what information we are allowed to share with other people, including the government and the Lexcel assessors.

In most circumstances we have to have your specific consent to share information. However, as our contract is dependent on the sharing of information with these two assessors, we consider that we do not need to ask you for your consent.

IMPORTANTLY you are free to withhold consent, which would just mean that we would need to find another file to send to the assessor. It would not affect the way we work for you at all.

If you wish to withhold consent, please let us know and we will mark your file so it is not submitted if requested.

If you want to speak to us before you make up your mind, please contact us.

 

Queries

If you have any query about any of the above, please contact the person dealing with your case or matter.