Complaints Against Solicitors

[Winder]

A friend of mine has been using a solicitor in a divorce financial settlement case in England. She has lost faith in the conduct of this solicitor and accuses them of incompetence, negligence, inflated bills, you name it. She has complained verbally to the head partner (and says she was charged for that appointment!) but I haven't yet persuaded her to follow up with their full internal complaints procedure. Her financial settlement case is still being handled by the same solicitors and I think her main goal is to not rock the boat before it is completed. Fees so far are upwards of £100000, her ex lives in Italy.
She has found a No Win No Fee company who she wants to use to 'get the bds' as soon as she can. i.e. she wants the fees reassessed. The one she has fixed on is Advocate Legal Services a.k.a. Freeway Legal services of Knutsford. I can't find any reviews good or bad online, odd for a 3 year old company? She is aware that they would take 1/3 of any financial settlement. Their MD shows as previously associated with 8 dissolved companies and presently also is Director of a Crash Claims Management company and insurance claim lease car company all through the same address as A.L.S. Assets and liabilities seem crap if the company is any good. Am I wrong to feel this is something my friend ought to stay clear of? On another thread someone recommended JMD Law in Cardiff:
http://www.jmdlaw.co.uk/suingaprofessional
Does anyone have experience of them or would like to suggest an alternative?

[Winder]

Subtle bump for the weekend!

[Soov535]

You already know the answer.

[rlw]

Is this a wind up.

The firm will have a complaints procedure, probably shown on the T&C letter. If they don't follow it, ask for the bill/s to be assessed. If that doesn't happen, complain to the SRA.

Some dodgy bunch of no win/no fee wkers (and make sure she checks their T&C first) staeming in will certainly upset whoever is acting for her.

Also, in my limited experience, does she actually have a valid complaint or is she being told stuff that she doesn't want to hear. It happens.

[Winder]

It isn't a wind-up. Did you think I'd write all that to troll the site?

She's very headstrong, has no faith that the solicitor's internal complaints will deliver what she feels has been overcharged and does not think the SRA has the teeth to deal with it. She probably isn't wrong.

I''ve said similar things to her but she seems hell-bent on using a professional negligence-type firm, so I wondered if anyone had a suggestion other than the one I posted in my OP, or info on the one I mentioned.

[hajaba123]

There are procedures to follow, she needs to engage her brain rather than engage some shysters
http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/for-the-public/faqs/c...

[Vaud]

Winder said:

It isn't a wind-up. Did you think I'd write all that to troll the site?

She's very headstrong, has no faith that the solicitor's internal complaints will deliver what she feels has been overcharged and does not think the SRA has the teeth to deal with it. She probably isn't wrong.

I''ve said similar things to her but she seems hell-bent on using a professional negligence-type firm, so I wondered if anyone had a suggestion other than the one I posted in my OP, or info on the one I mentioned.

Headstrong, won't listen to advice, won't engage in the formal process, thinks she has a better plan... great. Heading for more bills.

Guess: maybe, just maybe she has racked up 100k bills because she can't take advice. They didn't just land her with it, surely?

[Mound Dawg]

Winder said:

Their MD shows as previously associated with 8 dissolved companies and presently also is Director of a Crash Claims Management company and insurance claim lease car company

Sounds like a great bloke.

Without going into the ins and outs of her original complaint I can't see that putting the problem in his hands is wise.

And I've spent the last three hours drinking.

[mybrainhurts]

Ah, yes, divorce lawyers.

My opponent was also a judge and lied in an affidavit to freeze my bank account.

That's a jailing offence, isn't it?

[anonymous-user]

The idea that you fix one bunch of allegedly dodgy lawyers by instructing some even more dodgy quasi-lawyers is, well, novel.

[Jasandjules]

mybrainhurts said:

That's a jailing offence, isn't it?

Quite likely to have led to a promotion....

However OP, you already know (as said above) the answer to your question.

Find a good divorce lawyer (also, regardless of whether or not you believe, rightly or wrongly, that any complaint will go nowhere, you must still lodge one.)

[anonymous-user]

I have to say that the divorce end of the legal market does not fill me with admiration. The lawyers seem to promote strife and run up big bills in situations where other types of civil lawyer would encourage settlement and be more cost effective. The brightest lawyers don't go into family law, but those attracted just by money may do so. There seems to me an analogy with medicine, where various second rate quacks specialise in cosmetic medicine and fertility treatment, whilst the bright doctors work in less lucrative but more respectable disciplines.

[rlw]

Wife, who knows more about this than the rest of us put together, says go for the full complaints procedure now and if there is no response within six weeks contact the Legal Ombudsman who can take the appropriate action very quickly indeed...........

http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/

[Winder]

Thanks for the level headed responses, reaffirms what I've already suggested to my friend about engaging with this company. I hope I can nudge her back towards the complaints procedure and the ombudsman route.
I think she has caused some of the additional costs with her decisions, whether she can accept that I doubt. Her case was always going to be expensive, her ex is in Italy and not communicative so the solicitors would have had a lot of work on their hands with him. She's a hotheaded type too.
What's latched in my friends mind though is that she found that some of the partners were found to have been guilty of falsifying some documentation and fined fairly heavily. To her that shows that they can' the trusted any more to abide by any professional rules.
I'll see how it goes when I talk to her next.

[Lurking Lawyer]

rlw said:

Wife, who knows more about this than the rest of us put together, says go for the full complaints procedure now and if there is no response within six weeks contact the Legal Ombudsman who can take the appropriate action very quickly indeed...........

http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/

That advice is good as far as it goes, but the Ombudsman has a limit on the compensation it can award and so it's not going to be appropriate if the OP's friend's claim is substantial and so exceeds that cap. Accepting an Ombudsman's award will generally also preclude pursuing a negligence claim based on the same set of facts.

OP, if your friend is absolutely dead-set on pursuing a prof neg claim, I'd suggest that a good starting point is the Professional Negligence Lawyers Association. It really isnt to be embarked on lightly though (and I say that as someone who does a sizeable amount of claimant prof neg work....)

[mph1977]

Breadvan72 said:

I have to say that the divorce end of the legal market does not fill me with admiration. The lawyers seem to promote strife and run up big bills in situations where other types of civil lawyer would encourage settlement and be more cost effective. The brightest lawyers don't go into family law, but those attracted just by money may do so. There seems to me an analogy with medicine, where various second rate quacks specialise in cosmetic medicine and fertility treatment, whilst the bright doctors work in less lucrative but more respectable disciplines.

I think our learned friend sums it up . family law is civil law based in emotion, the rest of civil law is based in good business sense (domestic conveyancing aside perthaps) .

[can't remember]

Forget the negligence case, for now, and get her to take all her papers to a good international divorce specialist for review. It will be expensive but, if she is willing to listen to this advice, it will be worth it (assuming the ex is worth pursuing).

[Lurking Lawyer]

mph1977 said:

the rest of civil law is based in good business sense.

I would respectfully beg to differ!

It's all too common for commercial disputes to see good sense go out of the window and become as much about the personalities as the issues. Partnership and minority shareholder disputes are in my experience every bit as acrimonious as family law disputes, and plenty of other "run of the mill" commercial claims get mired in acrimony at the expense of objective commercially-sensible resolutions....

[anonymous-user]

I agree. Employee restrictive covenant cases can be very angsty, for example, but the lawyers tend to be better than the ones in family law, and they try to calm their clients down.

[Winder]

She's got the judgement she wanted regarding a property in Italy so she doesn't need the services of an international divorce lawyer any more. The loose ends are being tied up at the moment, it's just the way her case was handled by her solicitors that is the sticking point for her.
I'll point he in the direction of the PNLA for now as Lurking Lawyer suggested.