Our Policies (including complaints)

Equality & Diversity

Woodfines is committed to promoting equality and treating everyone with the same consistently high level of respect, courtesy and attention irrespective of age, disability, gender, marital status, race, racial group, colour, ethnic origin, nationality, religion or belief, sexual orientation, working pattern or any other protected characteristics.

We are therefore opposed to any form of unlawful or unfair treatment or discrimination. This approach is reflected in all our dealings with each other, our clients, contacts and any other third parties.

Our recruitment approach is to recruit purely based on aptitude and ability of the individual candidates.

To support this approach, each office of the firm has an appointed Equality and Diversity officer charged with taking responsibility for the promotion of this agenda across the firm as a whole under the direct supervision of our Management Team.

We review our policies and approaches regularly and provide all members of the firm with regular training.

We have introduced and implemented initiatives to further enshrine this commitment into the culture of the firm and working practices of the firm. Such initiatives include:

• Encouraging and promoting the career aspirations of working parents across the firm
• Implementing technological advances to accommodate and support a whole range of flexible working policies, practices and procedures
• Regularly running both in house and on line training across all levels of the firm.

We are also Charter Signatories to the Law Society’s Diversity and Inclusion Charter. Signatories to this Charter believe that a commitment to diversity and inclusion is essential to reflect the society we serve today.

You can find out more about the Charter on the Law Society’s website.

Every year Woodfines participates in the SRA’s diversity and equality review for the legal industry. To see our results of the 2023 survey please click here.

Complaints

Woodfines is committed to high quality legal advice and client care. If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you have received, or about our charges, please contact us with the details at complaints@woodfines.co.uk.

A written copy of our internal Complaints Procedure is available on request.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. 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.

You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to independently look at it:

Telephone: 0300 555 0333
Post: PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH
Email: The Legal Ombudsman
Website: The Legal Ombudsman

You will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within 6 months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint. You may also be able to apply to the Court for an assessment of our bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974.

Click here to access our complaints procedure.

Terms of Business

We have made several minor changes to our Terms of Business, including updating interest payments and changes to the revised Legal Ombudsman scheme. If you require a copy of our Terms of Business, please contact us.

Privacy & Cookie Policy 

Woodfines Solicitors (“Woodfines”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. Our privacy policy will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from) and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

This privacy notice (together with our Terms and Conditions and any other documents referred to therein) aims to give you information on how Woodfines collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you sign up to our newsletter, purchase a service or take part in a competition.

It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

Controller

Woodfines is the controller and responsible for your personal data (any reference to “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice means Woodfines).

We have appointed a data protection manager (DPM) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights (as described below) please contact the DPM using the details set out below.

DPM Contact Details
Our full details are:

• Full name of legal entity: Woodfines LLP
• Name or title of DPM: Maria Gallucci
• Email address: DPM@woodfines.co.uk
• Postal address: 16 St Cuthbert’s Street, Bedford, MK40 3JG.
• Telephone number: 01234 270600

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

This version was last updated on 25th May 2018 and historic versions can be obtained by contacting us.

The latest version of our full privacy policy can be found here.

To read our GDPR Candidate Privacy Policy, please click here.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files. Many websites place cookies on your computer when you visit. Cookies are used to make websites work, or to make them work more efficiently, and to provide useful information to website operators. If you agree to receive cookies a small text file will be placed in your browser.

Our Website uses the following Google Analytics cookies: utma; utmb; utmc; utmz.

These cookies help us analyse how our visitors use the Website. We use this information to prepare reports and improve the Website. This information is anonymous. The information includes the number of visitors to the Website, where visitors have come to the Website from and the pages they visited. A different cookie is used for each website, and visitors are not tracked across multiple sites. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the Website (including IP address) is transmitted to Google. This information may then be used to evaluate visitors’ use of the Website and to compile statistical reports on Website activity for Woodfines.

Many web browsers allow users to control most cookies through their browser settings. You may wish to visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/ which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your computer as well as more general information about cookies.

You can also install the Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on in your browser, which prevents Google Analytics from collecting information about your website visits.

Unsubscribing from our marketing

If you do not wish to receive further information about services and events offered by Woodfines, please contact the Marketing Team by writing to Woodfines LLP, 16 St Cuthbert’s Street, Bedford, MK40 3JG, or by emailing marketing@woodfines.co.uk. You may also contact Woodfines this way if you wish to have access to, modify, correct or object to the further processing of your information.