We aim to offer our clients quality legal advice and representation with a personal service at a fair cost. We hope it is helpful to you to set out in this statement the basis on which we propose to provide our professional services.
1. Conduct of Your Matter
AHS LAW is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under registration number: 625891 to provide independent legal advice and representation in England and Wales. You can find more details about us at www.ahslaw.co.uk and www.sra.org.uk.
The Owner and Principal Solicitor is Ali Hussain.
Our normal office opening hours are Monday to Friday between 9 am and 5.30 pm. Please help us to maintain a high standard of service by making an appointment. Outside office hours, if there is an emergency, you may contact us on 07493 032827.
2. Responsibilities
As the work we do on your behalf (your ‘matter’) progresses we will:
- Act in your best interests and keep your information confidential at all times;
- Communicate with you in plain language;
- Advise you on the likely timescale of the matter, where it is possible to do so, and keep you informed of any changes to it;
- Do our best to reply quickly to correspondence;
- Keep you informed of progress and the work that we are doing on your behalf, including any changes to the law that might have a bearing on your instructions;
- Tell you about any delays and explain the reasons;
- Explain the effect of any important documents;
- Tell you about staff changes that might affect you;
- Advise you of any circumstances and risks of which we are aware or consider to be reasonably foreseeable that could affect the outcome of your matter;
- Update you on the costs position and tell you if our original costs estimate needs to be reviewed.
You can help us by:
- Giving us clear instructions;
- Safeguarding any documents that will be important in this matter;
- Letting us know if you are unsure over any aspect of your matter;
- Telling us about any important time limits that you are under, or if you are going to be away for any length of time;
- Responding promptly to any questions that arise.
- Settling requests for payment promptly.
3. Methods of Communication
We will aim to communicate with you by such a method as you may request. Unless you withdraw consent, we will communicate with you and with others when appropriate by email or fax, but we cannot be responsible for the security of correspondence and documents sent by email or fax.
We use a secure electronic case management and IT system to store information and personal data. Our use of this information is subject to your instructions, data protection laws and our professional duty of confidentiality.
We will use our best endeavours to ensure that your confidential information is protected from illegal activity and take reasonable steps to minimise risk of hacking. This may include sending password protected digital documents or inviting you to a secure portal to access documents.
4. Termination of retainer
You may end your instructions to us in writing at any time, but we can keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for fees and expenses. We may decide to stop acting for you only with good reason, e.g. if you do not pay an interim invoice or there is a conflict of interests. We must give you reasonable notice that we will stop acting for you. If you or we decide that we should stop acting for you, you will pay our charges up until that point. These are calculated on an hourly basis plus expenses or by proportion of the agreed fee.
5. Professional indemnity insurance
We maintain professional indemnity insurance in accordance with the rules of the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Details of the insurers and the territorial coverage of the policy are available for inspection at our office.
6. Fees and Estimates
In legal aid cases, we will provide you with a separate letter explaining availability and funding options (see also ‘Funding your Case’ page on our website).
In private cases, we will provide you with a letter with a breakdown of our charges. VAT is payable in addition at the applicable rate (currently 20%). Any changes in our charging rates will be notified to you in advance.
7. Limitation of liability
Our liability to you for a breach of our contract with you will be limited to the sum stated in our professional indemnity insurance. If we breach our contract with you, we will not be liable for any loss of profits or loss of business or depletion of goodwill or loss of anticipated savings or loss of contract or loss of use.
We can only limit our liability to the extent the law and our professional rules allow. In particular, we do not limit our liability for any loss or damage suffered by you as a result of fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation or death or personal injury caused by our negligence.
We shall have no liability to you if we are prevented from, or delayed in performing, our obligations or from carrying on our business by acts, events, omissions or accidents beyond our reasonable control.
AHS LAW will provide advice and services to you. You agree that you will not bring any claim in person against an owner, partner, employee, agent or consultant of AHS LAW in connection with any advice or services provided or for the acts or omissions taken or not taken by them.
8. Papers and Deeds
After completing the work, we will be entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for fees and expenses. We will keep our file of your papers for up to six years, except those papers that you ask to be returned to you. We keep files on the understanding that we can destroy them six years after the date of the final invoice. We will not destroy documents you ask us to deposit in safe custody. If we take papers or documents out of storage in relation to continuing or new instructions to act for you, we will not normally charge for such retrieval.
However, we may charge you both for:
- time spent producing stored papers that are requested
- reading, correspondence or other work necessary to comply with your instructions in relation to the retrieved papers
9. Anti-Money Laundering
The law requires solicitors to get satisfactory evidence of the identity of their clients and sometimes people related to them. This is because solicitors who deal with money and property on behalf of their client can be used by criminals wanting to launder money. To comply with the law, we need to get evidence of your identity as soon as possible. Our practice is to ask to see your original passport or photo driving licence and a recent utility invoice or bank statement or to ask you to submit certified copies from another firm of solicitors.
Please note that any such searches and copy documents will be securely maintained on the file for your matter in pursuance of our data protection policy. The uses that will be made of this data will be to provide confirmation of the identity of the person(s) providing it only. The law requires us to maintain such data for the period of five years from the end of the matter we are handling for you or from the date at which you cease to be a client of this firm. However, you agree to our retaining the forms and any other data for our usual file retention period of 6 years from the date of the file being archived, or longer than this if necessary, as when litigation has arisen or may be pending, and the checks have or may become relevant in any such proceedings.
10. Confidentiality
We are professionally and legally obliged to keep your affairs confidential. However, solicitors may be required by statute to make a disclosure to the National Crime Agency where they know or suspect that a transaction may involve money laundering or terrorist financing. If we make a disclosure in relation to your matter, we may not be able to tell you that a disclosure has been made. We may have to stop working on your matter for a period of time and may not be able to tell you why.
11. Financial Services advice
We are not authorised under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, nor are we regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
12. Equality and Diversity
We are committed to promoting equality and diversity in all of our dealings with clients, third parties and staff.
We will not tolerate any form of harassment, which includes unwanted conduct related to age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation, which has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.
We reserve the right to cease acting for any client immediately who harasses or abuses our staff, agents or any other person acting on our behalf.