Information about us

1.   Who we are

‘Porter Dodson’ and ‘Porter Dodson Solicitors & Advisors’ are trading names of Porter Dodson LLP, a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with registered no. OC372439, whose registered office is Telford House, The Park, Yeovil, Somerset, BA20 1DY.

We use the word “partner” to refer to a member of Porter Dodson LLP. A list of the members can be viewed below. All references to “Porter Dodson”, “we”, “the firm” and the like should be read as referring to Porter Dodson LLP.

2.   List of partners

Evelyn Adfield	Chris Green	Ben Simpson
Richard Baker	Ben Hingley	Sarah Stone
Scott Bowley	Kate James	Victoria Walker
Sharon Collier	Rebecca Marshall	Paul Watkins
Robert Coppard (Chartered Legal Executive)*	Tom Mottram	Helen Williams
David Culshaw	Julia Perrins	Michelle Wilson (Chartered Legal Executive)*
Zara Davies	Laura Roper	Sarah Young
Chris Dickinson	Louise Sanders
Susannah Emson (formally Bower)	Ellen Saunders (barrister)*
Steve Farnham	Kate Shawcross
Zoe Gaitskell	Jenny Shepherd

 

* All partners are solicitors except where shown.

3. How we are regulated

We are licensed in the UK as Solicitors and are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). Our SRA registration number is 573374. The SRA has a Code of Conduct and Handbook which all solicitors must follow. You can find the Code of Conduct on the SRA’s website, at: www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/handbook/code/content.page. From this page you can also access the rest of the SRA Handbook, the Code of Conduct being just one section of this. The Law Society is our professional body, but responsibility for regulation and complaints handling has been separated from the Law Society’s role of representing our profession and given to the SRA, which is now the independent regulatory body of the Law Society. We are accountable to the SRA and to the Legal Ombudsman, which is the independent complaints body of the Office for Legal Complaints. Both the SRA and the Office for Legal Complaints are regulated by the Legal Services Board.

4. Complaints

We want you to be completely satisfied with the work we do for you and the service we provide. If at any time you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you have received, or about a bill we have sent you, please tell us immediately so that we can put things right. We have a complaints procedure, a copy of which is available on request, but please speak in the first instance to the person dealing with your work. If your complaint cannot be resolved to your satisfaction, please contact our Client Care Partner at Porter Dodson, 21 South Street, Bridport, DT6 3NR (tel. 01308 555632), or info@porterdodson.co.uk.

If we cannot resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you can refer it to The Legal Ombudsman, whose contact details can be found below. Note that there are restrictions on who can use the Ombudsman service, which is primarily for individuals and small organisations (businesses, charities and clubs): contact the Ombudsman for further details. There are also time limits for bringing a complaint, as follows:

• Within 1 year of the reason for your complaint (or within 1 year of you becoming aware of it);

• Within 6 months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint.

If you are a consumer and we have made a contract with you by electronic means you may also be entitled to use an EU online dispute resolution service to assist with any contractual dispute you may have with us – please see http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/ for further information.

THE LEGAL OMBUDSMAN www.legalombudsman.org.uk

PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk Tel: 0300 555 0333

 

Alternative complaints bodies (such as ProMediate) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme.

We do not usually agree to use such a scheme because the Legal Ombudsman was established specifically to deal with legal services complaints and in any event will seek in the first instance to facilitate an informal resolution between the parties.

The SRA 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.

Contact details are as follows:

SRA, The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham B1 1RN Email: report@sra.org.uk  Tel: 0370 606 2555

 

5. For your protection

Regulation by the SRA means that you enjoy the protection of the professional indemnity insurance which we have to maintain and also the protection of the Solicitors’ Compensation Fund, which the Law Society maintains to provide protection for uninsured losses of clients’ money.

We maintain Professional Indemnity Insurance at a level at least matching the minimum required by the SRA, covering all work we carry out in the UK. Our primary insurer, who provides our compulsory layer of cover, is Endurance Worldwide Insurance Limited (Sompo International). If you require further information about our professional indemnity insurance, or require a copy of our complaints procedure, please contact Scott Bowley at scott.bowley@porterdodson.co.uk.

6. VAT

Porter Dodson is registered for Value Added Tax in the United Kingdom (registration number GB 186 0391 53).

7.   Diversity & inclusion

We are committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in all our dealings with our clients, staff and third parties. We have a written diversity and inclusion policy which sets out our position on this subject. If you would like a copy of this, please write to our Diversity and Inclusion Partner at Porter Dodson, The Quad, Blackbrook Park Avenue, Taunton, Somerset TA1 2PX, marking your envelope ‘Diversity and Inclusion Policy’.

8.   Financial services

We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority of England. However, we are included on the register maintained by the Financial Conduct Authority so that we can carry on insurance activity, which is broadly advising on, selling and administering of insurance contracts. This part of our business, including arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong, is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The register can be accessed via the Financial Conduct Authority website at http://www.fca.org.uk.

9.   Distance selling legislation (e.g. home visits)

If you give us instructions at a face-to-face meeting at somewhere other than one of our offices (such as your home) and you are a consumer, you are entitled under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 to cancel your contract with us within 14 days of the date of instruction. You can exercise this right to cancel in any way you choose, as long as you make it clear to us that you are doing so. We are not allowed to start work for you until this right to cancel has expired, unless you specifically ask us in writing to do so. If you do this, but then change your mind, you may do so provided the 14 day period has not expired and we have not already completed the work.

If you exercise your right to cancel, having specifically told us to start work before that right has expired, we are entitled to charge you for any work we have already carried out.

Terms of use of our website

These terms of use (together with our Privacy and Cookie Policy) tell you the basis on which you may make use of (including accessing and browsing) our website www.porterdodson.co.uk (our site).

Our site is based in England and is intended for use within England and Wales. If you choose to access our site from outside England and Wales, you are solely responsible for compliance with the relevant local laws.

By using our site, you confirm that you accept these terms of use and that you agree to comply with them. If you do not agree to these terms of use, you must not use our site.

We may update and change these terms of use at any time. Please check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we have made as they are binding on you.

1.   Our site

The content on our site is provided for general information only and can be changed at any time. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely.

Although we make reasonable efforts to update the information on our site, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that the content on our site is accurate, complete or up-to-date.

Please contact us for professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.

2.   Accessing our site

Our site is made available free of charge and access is permitted on a temporary basis. We do not guarantee that our site, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. We may suspend, withdraw, discontinue or change all or any part of our site without notice. We will not be liable to you if for any reason our site is unavailable at any time or for any period.

3.   Linking to our site and links to third party websites

You may not link to our site without our prior written permission. We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.

If you wish to link to our site please contact info@porterdodson.co.uk.

Links to third party websites and resources are provided for your information only and is not an endorsement. We assume no responsibility for the content of websites linked on our site and will not be liable for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them.

4.   Blogs

You agree not to post any material which is obscene, misleading, inaccurate, defamatory or in breach of any copyright or intellectual property rights or that will cause any damage to data, software or the performance of any computer system. You will be responsible for any loss or damage we suffer as a result of your breach of this paragraph.

Any posting to our site will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary, and we have the right to use, copy, distribute and disclose to third parties any such content for any purpose. We reserve the right to remove any posting you make on our site.

We also have the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any content posted or uploaded by you to our site constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy.

We will not be responsible, or liable to any third party, for the content or accuracy of any content posted by you or any other user of our site.

The views expressed by other users on our site do not represent our views or values.

5.   Viruses

We do not guarantee that our site will be free from bugs or viruses. You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform in order to access our site. You should use your own virus protection software.

We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a virus, distributed denial-of-service attack, or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of our site or to your downloading of any content on it, or on any website linked to it.

We will report any breach of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 by you to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our site will cease immediately.

6.   Intellectual property rights

We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our site, and in the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world.  All such rights are reserved.

You may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any page(s) from our site for your personal use and you may draw the attention of others within your organisation to content posted on our site. Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of content on our site must always be acknowledged.

You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.

You must not use any part of the content on our site for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.

If you print off, copy or download any part of our site in breach of these terms of use, your right to use our site will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.

The Porter Dodson logo and Porter Dodson Fertility and Parenting logo are registered trade marks of Porter Dodson LLP.

7.   Limitation of our liability

Nothing in these terms of use excludes or limits our liability for:

• death or personal injury arising from our negligence,

• fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or

• any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited by English law.

We shall not be liable for any of these losses: loss of profits; loss of business; depletion of goodwill and/or similar losses, or pure economic loss; any special, indirect or consequential loss, costs, damages, charges or expenses however arising.

We shall not be liable to any user for any loss or damage (even if foreseeable) arising under or in connection with the use of (or inability to use) our site, or use of or reliance on any content displayed on our site. This is the case whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise.

To the extent permitted by law, we exclude all conditions, warranties, representations or other terms which may apply to our site or any content on it, whether express or implied.

8.   Applicable law

These terms of use are governed by English law. Any disputes in connection with these terms of use shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.