LOD Legal is a service offering from Lawyers on Demand Limited (“LOD”) offering legal services from our team of experienced ex-inhouse lawyers. Our LOD Legal lawyers are individually regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (or by the relevant professional body in their place of admission). LOD itself is not regulated by the SRA.
LOD Legal core offering is general commercial and employment work. We do not offer “reserved legal services” (see below for more information on what this means), immigration services, claims management services, regulated financial services activities and notarial services. If your matter involves one of these areas, please let us know and we will suggest alternative solutions to meet your needs. Accordingly, we do not offer the following “Reserved Legal Services”:
- Rights of audience: the right to appear before and address a court, including the right to call and examine witnesses.
- Conduct of litigation: the issuing of proceedings before any court in England and Wales; the commencement, prosecution and defence of such proceedings, and the performance of any ancillary functions in relation to such proceedings.
- Reserved instrument activities: preparing any instrument of transfer or charge for the purposes of the Land Registration Act 2002; making an application or lodging a document for registration under that Act; preparing any other instrument relating to real or personal estate for the purposes of the law of England and Wales or instrument relating to court proceedings in England and Wales.
- Probate activities
- Administration of oaths
LOD can also provide lawyers and other professionals on secondment to your business This Legal Notice does not apply to such secondments and separate terms and conditions will apply. Please speak to your LOD contact for more information about these services.
Professional Indemnity Insurance and the SRA Compensation Fund
LOD holds professional indemnity insurance to protect our clients in case something goes wrong and our legal professionals are covered by this insurance. Full details of our insurance can be provided upon request. As we are not regulated by the SRA, we do not have to carry the same level of insurance as a regulated Law Firm (see https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/standards-regulations/indemnity-insurance-rules/#annex-1 for more details and amounts).
Any claim in relation to LOD Legal services shall solely be against LOD and not personally against any of our lawyers or staff providing services to you. You will not be able to make a claim on the SRA Compensation Fund as this is not available to clients of firms not regulated by the SRA. The fund provides compensation to people who are owed money by a regulated law firm.
Please let us know if you need more explanation of the above to understand the position.
Complaints
We want to give you the best possible service. However, if you’re not happy with the services or our charges, please speak to the Lead Lawyer for your matter (you will find their name in the email confirming your instructions). We welcome the opportunity to resolve any concerns you have with a bill or our services and we will aim to resolve the matter promptly. If you prefer you can raise your complaint directly with the UK Managing Director, Nigel Rea at Nigel.rea@lodlaw.com.
We also have a written complaints policy which is available from the Lead Lawyer or your usual LOD Legal contact; which details how to make a complaint.
If you are not satisfied with the result of your complaint, or if it has not been resolved within eight weeks, you may have a right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman.
Contact details are:
Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Call: 0300 555 0333
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ.
If you are unhappy about the behaviour of any of our lawyers who are regulated by the SRA, you can also raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. Please visit their website for more detail.
Conflicts
Our lawyers have a professional obligation to ensure that they do not act for a client where is a conflict of interest or a significant risk of one. We will carry out conflict checks as soon as possible after our initial discussions with you on a matter. If we identify an actual or potential conflict, we will discuss the situation with you to agree how the situation can be resolved. If you become aware of an actual or potential conflict of interest, please let us know promptly.
Confidential Information
Our lawyers have a professional duty to keep the affairs of our current and former clients confidential unless disclosure is required, permitted by law or you consent.
We may disclose your client information to give effect to your instructions and to any of our LOD Legal staff and lawyers for the proper management of your matter. As LOD obtains certain of its business services from other members of the LOD Group, LOD may also share so much of your information as is reasonably necessary for the receipt of such services. We may also disclose your information in confidence to our auditors, insurers and other professional advisors in connection with the performance of their duties.
Unless we agree otherwise with you, on completion or termination of our LOD Legal services, we will retain your documents for 7 years.
Our Team
Our outsourced legal services are provided by lawyers qualified in England and Wales, lawyers qualified in other jurisdictions, paralegals, legal managers and administrative assistants. All work is triaged appropriately and with appropriate points of escalation.