Legal aid lawyers deserve recognition for their high standards of practice.

In 1998 I became the first Chief Assessor and Examiner of the Law Society’s newly created Family Law Panel. It was not an appointment I had expected: I was female, living in the north of England and definitely not part of what I understood to be the small “Establishment” of mostly London-based solicitors, working for well-known firms.

I was thrilled to accept the role, and was given the task of heading up a new accreditation system for family lawyers, so that standards could be improved nationwide.

However, it was a far from easy start. Opposition to my appointment came from within “Establishment” ranks, which was an unpleasant introduction to life outside my cosy Yorkshire environs! But to their credit, the Law Society backed me. I met a group of very decent and dedicated people working behind the scenes, in the Law Society’s administrative offices in Redditch and London. My “Northern grit” came to the fore and I got stuck into the job with a vengeance! Continue reading »

“Supposing you can’t pay your solicitors’ fees - what then?”

One of the first issues that any solicitor addresses with a client should be the costs of a case. It is a delicate subject, but needs to be addressed at the outset because the general rule in financial divorce disputes and children cases is that each side pays their own costs. Many clients think the richer party will be paying the costs - but the rules changed last year and this is no longer the case.

 At Stowe Family Law, we don’t operate a “no win no fee” system, which would be illegal. Neither can we offer a “percentage of the value of the case at the end of the case” system for charging which too is illegal. We charge by the hour. Our solicitors provide full details of their charging structure in advance, with a retainer letter for the client to accept and sign.

During a first meeting, it isn’t possible to tell a client exactly how much a case is going to cost. However, it should be possible for an experienced solicitor to provide a rough estimate. I don’t think that is unreasonable, because a client needs to budget. It is important to note that a case may end up costing more than originally expected: unforeseen circumstances can and do arise, and even seemingly straightforward circumstances can become complicated.

Although costs can sometimes escalate suddenly and swiftly, I believe a client needs to know from the beginning that a case which might cost £150k is not going to cost only £5k. I actually saw this happen in one case: I was engaged by a client whose previous solicitor had informed him that his hotly contested £30 million divorce case would cost no more than £5k in legal fees. The solicitor had even put this in writing. Fortunately, the client had suspected that something was amiss. It was a crazy figure - and one that no experienced lawyer would hope to defend.

Supposing you can’t pay your solicitors’ fees - what then?

There are various options.

Continue reading »