Choosing a Family Law Solicitor

For most clients, getting divorced is the first time that they have instructed a solicitor outside of preparing wills or dealing with house sales or purchases. Instructing a family law solicitor is a wholly different experience.

Whoever you instruct, you are likely to be working with them very closely for a period of several months, sharing with them the most personal and important aspects of your life as well as paying them significant sums. You must feel confident and comfortable with them.

You may choose to work at the outset with a Divorce Consultant who has oversight of the family law market and will take time to match you with the solicitor with the style, approach and expertise best suited to your case. Alternatively, you may wish to speak to trusted friends or professional advisors as to who they recommend, but do approach those with caution, just because a particular solicitor achieved a great result for your neighbour, they may not be the right fit for you.

Generally speaking all solicitors are likely to give you similar advice as they are advising on the same law. Where they will differ is on their approaches, working practices and charging rates. It may be worth having an initial short chat with two or three solicitors before deciding who to instruct: this should be sufficient time to get a feel for their style and whether you think you will be able to work well together.

When you do speak or meet there are various practical questions that you may wish to put to them including:

• How hands on they are. Will they be working on your case or delegating day to day matters to a more junior member of their teams.
• Their charging rates and those likely to be involved on your case although this can be a red herring as some solicitors are much faster/slower than others!
• Their working hours, availability in the months ahead and expected response times.
• What proportion of their cases are in court proceedings and how many of their cases settle outside of court which will give you some indication as to their leanings.

Changing Solicitors

You may find that your case is underway and you are having second thoughts about your solicitor. It is fairly common as most people who want family law advice do so urgently and do not take the time to research the market before instructing a solicitor.

For most clients, getting divorced it is the first time that they have instructed a solicitor outside of preparing wills or dealing with house sales or purchases: instructing a solicitor to deal with the most important and personal aspects of your life who do not charge on a fixed fee basis is wholly different.

The most frequent complaints that clients tend to have are that a solicitor is too passive, too aggressive, not available enough, that they do not like their charging practices or just that you do not feel that you are working well together.

If you are considering changes, it is important to speak to a few solicitors before you decide who to instruct.

Generally while one change of solicitor is unlikely to be noticed, if it is something that happens multiple times during a case adverse inferences may be drawn as to the reasons for this, so you need to be confident that your new solicitor will be the right one for you.

There are practical issues that you need to think about when changing solicitors as there is likely to be a practical delay in the transfer of your file from one firm to another. Your current solicitor is entitled to hold on to your file until all of the outstanding fees owing to them have been paid. For this reason the timing of your move will need to be carefully considered around any significant deadlines which it may make sense to move before or after. There is also likely to be a cost to your new solicitors of reading into your file which will be an additional cost to you. They will generally be pleased to be instructed so you may be able to agree a fixed fee or reduced hourly rate for their doing so.