Speaking from someone in the legal trade here is my halfpenny's worth:
I completely agree that an information pack
should be compulsory - and this should include information about e.g. how
to change your solicitor, the costs involved, what a solicitor does - and
does not do (ie they are not your counsellor) and the options for self
repping.A Rule 2 (previously 'Rule 15') letter should be
sent to each client when first instructed. This details the instructions,
the advice, the person representing you (and their grade and status), costs
estimates, the complaints handling procedure and several other things.
To a certain extent family
solicitors do provide a counselling service.
Many clients are emotional wrecks when they first arrive and can actually
crack a smile after the first appointment. However, your reference to not
being a counsellor stands in contrast to this comment:
erm ... and they should above all remember that their
clients are distressed human beings who are likely not to be thinking
straight .. and who need to be treated with care and respect...which suggests that the Solicitor should be more compassionate.
There is a fine line between letting a client bend your ear and providing
an emotional crutch in the form of sound advice and reasoning – it varies
with each client.
All sols should be
email literate and should have a charging system that reflects 21st century
communications practices - ie not charging the earth for reading v short
emails ...communicating via email when possible.Email is
still not formally recognised by the Courts. It can be used instead of
letters (I certainly encourage it if only to save on postal costs) but the
response time from the Solicitor is still the same as a letter apart from
getting to the Solicitor a day earlier. Clients don't realise that post
trays are still in operation and emails are printed and put into post
trays.
Charging systems have their pros and cons. I regularly
see large firms that rely heavily on time costing printouts where lawyers
are tasked with recording 7 chargeable hours a day. Employees then look at
their time at the end of the day and 'flood' files they have worked on with
the balance of time required to make up a full day.
It is very
easy to criticise the current method of time recording but it is difficult
to keep track of time spent attending clients, preparing documents,
speaking to people on the telephone and starting and stopping each of the
tasks based on unforeseen events (mainly telephone calls). The
firm I work for sets a much more realistic target of 5.5 hours a days
during working hours of 9.00am to 5.30pm.
The Courts realise
that tracking time is difficult and introduced a minimum unit of 6 minutes
which is 10% of an hour. Any item that is below 6 minutes is deemed to be
routine and attracts a 6 minute unit fee. How sophisticated would a system
have to be to track every minute (or every second) of somebody's day? My
answer would be "too sophisticated ". You could spent hundreds of
thousands on a bespoke system that would do the job but the Courts would
still insist on the current system as it works and has done for hundreds of
years.
The system is of course open to abuse but so are
charging systems in other industrys. One that springs to mind is getting a
car serviced at a main dealer. If you have your oil changed during a
service and 8 litres of fully synthetic race-spec oil is used, two five
litre containers are invoiced. The remainder (at £40 per litre) is kept by
the garage to use on another job. Sounds illegal but it isn't. It's the
same principle.
The charges should be
clearly understood, there should be a transparent invoicing system and
there should be no charges for correspendence querying bills
.....I agree with this partially. I see a lot of bills
to clients that simply say "TO providing legal services…….£X" This is too
little detail. I prepare very detailed schedules which describe each item
of work and the amount charged. Routine letters and telephone calls are
shown as a number e.g. 38 letters @ £14.50 each = £551.00.
I
prepare around 2200 of these schedules a year and it keeps me busy.
However, despite providing this level of details clients occasionally seek
more detail such as "you didn't send me 38 letters" – my real answer is not
fit for public consumption but suffice to say I do explain that we send
letters to the other side, the court, the court welfare officer (CAFCASS),
the Land Registry, the
mediation service, counsel etc. – all of which
count towards the total.
Providing (or
directing clients to) word version of all documents so clients can fill
them in themselves and just have them checked ... (like the passport
checking service)Provision of a service costs money or
resources which amount to the same thing. You would be surprised at how
often the Court moves its standard documentation around with no
explanation. Somebody has to track down these things and forward them for
free? The internet can certainly assist a person in finding forms as can
going to a court for the necessary blank forms. The CAB can also help as
it is a non-profit making organisation.
Providing Word documents
is sometimes appropriate but other times not. In the case of my firm we
use a legal software package called Laserform which allows us to keep up to
date with the 350 or so forms we use regularly. The software is
proprietary and the documents it produces cannot be opened with anything
other than Laserform. A PDF version can be sent to the client for hand
editing but anything after that is a limitation of the system I'm
afraid.
We regularly assist clients with completing forms. If a
client has prepared a form most Solicitors will charge a small fee for
'giving it a once over'. Accountants will do the same with self-assessment
forms. Of course, if the form is completely wrong or has glaring errors it
may require substantial reworking which will cost more time and money. An
example of this was a client of one of my colleagues who wanted to make an
application in a Children Act matter. The client prepared a statement
himself "to save money" which went into intricate detail and which numbered
20 pages or so. My colleague had to read the statement, edit the statement
and take instructions on the issues that were actually important. The
resulting statement was less than 5 pages long. My colleague spent around
4 hours on the statement but decided that he could only charge 2 hours as
what he should have done was get the client in, take instructions and
prepare the statement himself. The benefit of hindsight…
Sols should also see the Family Law protocol as a binding
guideline not just a nice to do but it does not matter if you don't ... If
only all sols stuck to these, life would be a lot easier.Family law protocol is not always appropriate which is why it isn't
binding. If you have instructions to issue a Section 37 application to
prevent removal of funds and/or assets by an estranged spouse, divorce and
ancillary relief proceedings have to be issued at the same time if no
applications have already been made. The protocol says that the divorce
petition should be submitted to the respondent for approval but this kind
of gives the game away particularly when the particulars of divorce specify
a reckless financial lifestyle and threats of desertion to a domicile
outside the Court's jurisdiction (okay I manufactured the example to fit
the purpose but there are many scenarios that would necessitate a
disapplication of the protocol).
Without knowing your specific
gripes in relation to Family Law Protocol it is difficult to comment
further. You should bear in mind that solicitors are officers of the court
and have a duty to supervise their minions to the same standard.
Solicitors are regulated which means that they are duty-bound to act
professionally and not bring the profession into disrepute. There are
harsh penalties for going against these principles.
erm ... and they should above all remember that their
clients are distressed human beings who are likely not to be thinking
straight .. and who need to be treated with care and respect.
Yes, it
is the client's job to "instruct" the solicitor ... but the client does not
always know what the options are .. or could be.
This respect
should also extend to the other party. Inflammatory behaviour is not
acceptable ..Most family solicitors I know act in the
best interests of their clients. They act on the instructions that they
receive and accept every word that is said as if it were the truth. There
are always two versions of events and the bits that don't match are the
bits that solicitors focus on in disputes. If a solicitor backs down too
easily it will be to their client's detriment and may lead to a claim of
negligence. But fighting too hard will inhibit settlement. The best
solicitors are in the middle, mediating.
Kimmi
I noted however that my stbx's solicitor did not
point out to him that his requests were not only unreasonable, they were
disrespectful and some where wholly innapropriate. Without seeing all file notes and letters to your ex you can never be
sure of the advice he received. He may have been advised that his case was
unrealistic but if his instructions were to proceed then that's what his
solicitor will do. If he was not advised appropriately then he had a poor
quality solicitor and like poor quality builders they charge the same for a
sub-standard job. I'm a cynic but I believe that you have to be unlucky to
get a rubbish solicitor rather than lucky to get a good one.
Charles
England and Wales 
. It later transpired that she did that as she
thought she would get more money. All along she was having an affair,
which I didn't find out about until much later, and I think she was doing
what her boyfriend wanted as he wanted cash 
. She let her solicitor think there was lots of
money and there wasn't. She wrongly assumed that I would have to pay off
all the debt including hers and her tax bills 
. Her solicitor is a member of resolution but was
totally inflammatory and confrontational from the outset which set the tone
for the whole process. From what I can see being a member of resolution
means nothing if he is anything to go by. I think he thought he had a
client with lots of money and he milked it all the way until the penny
eventually dropped that he might not get paid. If he had behaved
differently it could have been sorted out quickly and we could both have
walked away with something in the end we both have nothing and I've neded
up with a small amount of debt. I had a very good solicitor when it all
started but gave him up once I'd found wiki and the confidence to represent
myself so i could save money. My solicitor was shocked at the way her
solicitor behaved. I think there should be a transparent grading system
similar to ebay and trip advisor where people can provide feedback on their
experiences of 