Advice on solicitors. Please help!

[mummynumber2]

Hi, just wondering if anyone can recommend a good family solicitor in London. Or if anyone can tell us who not to go with. Know there are lots of advocates for doing it alone here but thinl it's all got too comlpicated.
If no recommendations does anyone know how to find one and if there's any way of finding out who is good and who isn't.

[tigereyes1817]

Personally I would not touch any Solicitor, not for court proceedings. The only advise I seek off a solicitor is the free session ones. It does seems very daunting to DIY but believe me it is a hell of less expensive and you get more out of it than you ever would using solicitors. It gets very long and very complicated which in turn becomes very expensive with solicitors being involved. Yergurt (Spelling) Will give you the the group information that he is a part of and they will help you with the legal advise and offer support in court. I would definately go this way not down the solicitor route. We do it DIY and we have come out now three times with more than we went in with and were able to say hell of lot more than ever we did with a solicitor with us, and it cost us a fortune with little progress.
As for things getting complicated all you have do is ensure you tell the truth as no one will ever be able to prove lies where as the truth can always be proven. So yes use the free advise session about half an hour but definately get the info about the Father and Families organisation (NOT NOT father4justice). These people help you no end for a very little fee I thin it is £40.
Hope this has helped and hope you can the outcome you deserve.

[yerblurt]

Hi there

I'd echo what tigereyes said, solicitors are a bunch of lazy, incompetent money grabbing scum of the earth (by and large!). Especially the family law solicitors!

If you do go down the solicitor route, make sure you are using one who is a member of Resolution - these are supposed to offer dispute resolution in an effort to avoid court.

I would highly recommend you get yourself along to a local Families Need Fathers branch meeting (I'm a local branch volunteer and meeting chair), we are a national charity not affiliate in any way to F4J and commited to shared parenting and avoiding court if possible.

Sometimes a well written letter and offering Family Mediation (following it being written up by a solicitor so its legally binding) can avoid the court route.

If not, then, as I did, I would always recommend self-represting yourself in court (i.e. going Litigant In Person, "LIP") with an experienced McKenzie friend (i.e. a lay legal advisor who can offer you advice and support in court. You can find a McK friend via FNF). You will save yourself thousands of pounds, get a better result and no doubt, a greater feeling of control over your case. It's not for everyone, but if you're pretty organised, can use a PC and a word processor, have access to a photocopier and the internet then there is NO reason not too.

You can always do the preliminary stages of any court process and then use a solicitor for the later stages.

Finding out how "good" a solicitor is really a lottery (like the family courts), there are good and crap ones, ultimately they all come from the same boat and will recommend what they see is the "going rate" or "what usually works in court" i.e. what they've learned - not what the reality of shared parenting is.

Things to ask a solicitor - well go along to a few, get a free 1/2 hour consultation and ask the questions that you want - then post back here with their replies so we can advise you!

how experienced is your solicitor, are they aggressive or pro-active in their case management, who will be working on the case - a junior, how many cases similar to yours have they represented in the last 3-5 years and what was their result, how much is going to cost (you will be looking at thousands, unless you are on legal aid, and remember that there is a 3k limit on legal aid until you need to apply for a new certificate).

... your call...

[mummynumber2]

Well, we have a consultation on Wednesday. We can't get legal aid and when DP spoke to the solicitor on the phone he said he expected it to be a long and expensive process but was hopefull that we would get the outcome we want. DP has tried to get her to go to mediation but she has refused as she is 'quite happy with the childcare arrangements'. What she's happy with seems to be all she is concerned with.
Anyway, we'll try to get as much info from him as we can, ask lots of questions and will definatly post back!

[yerblurt]

What is the current parenting schedule

How old are the children

What is it that you are ultimately seeking

Does your partner have PR (parental responsibility) i.e. was he married, when were the children born, is his name on the birth certificate.

[mummynumber2]

At the mo they're here 1 night one week and the next 3 nights, 1/2 holidays. DP's ex has recently cut this down from more or less 50% of time here, although we can't proove that this has happened and she says that this has always been the arrangement.
The chidren are 11, 9 and 4, so I believe that the oldest would be able to give his opinion.
What we're ultimately seeking is for the children to be in a safe environment and for them to be here at least 50% of the time. At the moment DP deals with all aspects of their health, Dr, Dentist, Optician etc and they use our address. Also he applied to DSSs school and they use this address for correspondance. DP's ex is fine with this being the case and is fairly uninerested in these things. Obviously it's difficult to manage all this when they are here so little.
Yes, he has parental responsibility.

[yerblurt]

So previously there was a shared care arrangement that was unilaterally disrupted and changed by the ex...

as long as you have been keeping a contact diary - or a record of the times and number of o/n stays the child has at yours, that should be enough.

A 1 night , 3 night on a 2 week rotation is not great, but it's enough for a SRO. It just so happens that is what the schedule is for me:
week 1: fri o/n (collection from school, drop off at ex's on sat morn)
week 2: fri, sat, sun o/n (collection from school fri, drop off at school mon am)

1/2 hols.

with the hols it works out about 35% time children at yours. A SRO would just reflect the reality of the childrens lives.

You won't get it back to 50:50 I'm afraid.

If you have a record of communication from the children's authorities (schools etc) to your address then this adds weight to the argument that you are substantially involved in the children's lives and a SRO sends out a message that you are an equal parent.

Are the CSA involved - because of course, the less o/n stays at yours, the more CSA monies the ex gets as you get a reduction for o/n stays.

When CAFCASS get involved, certainly the 11 year old's opinions would be taken into consideration, and probably the 9 year old too.

I would advise you first sending a letter to the ex (sent recorded delivery) with a copy to her soicitor inviting the ex to family mediation - make all the necessary arrangeemnts beforehand and make appointments so the ex can't wriggle out of it. State that you would like a reply within 2 weeks or suggest that it be brought before the court as you need to make some sort of decision about the childrens parenting schedule as all this disruption can't be good for anyone.

If she don't play ball then you will probably have little option but to file for a SRO.

1/2 holidays is normal - make sure it's 1/2 of ALL holidays, plus there are the teacher training days to think about, these usually just get added to whoever the child is staying with adjacent to that training day. xmas's should be alternated each year. 1/2 hols = 1/2 the half-terms (either alternate 1/2 terms or split them exactly, 2.5 days), summer hols can be a 1 week:2 week: 1 week: 2 week or a straight 3 week:3 week split.

[mummynumber2]

Thanks for all your advice again yerblurt.
Why do you say we won't get it back to 50:50? At their mothers they are living in a dangerous environment. When we had them more it was so much easier to keep everything under control, make sure they did their homework and manage health problems etc. If it can't be 50% of time with us DP will have to do everything he can to become the main carer. I know a SRO can give the father more legal standing etc but I'm just not sure how ths will actually help DSC on an everyday basis. What they need is to be in a stable environment, with their health/ educational/ safety needs being met all of the time, not just 35% of the time.
And yes, the CSA are involved and do not believe any of what we have said regarding the previous 'shared care' arrangement, or anything about the 'vololntary payments'. Quite honestly we don't have the energy to fight it any more. We're just paying and hoping that the money is helpfull to DSC and putting everything into sorting out what will happen in the future.

[yerblurt]

You won't get back to 50:50 unless the ex consents to it - she's been unilaterally changing the parental schedule and unless you propose to change it yourself you've got an uphill battle.

When/If it goes to court, and CAFCASS get involved i.e what used to be the court welfare officers - they make a report for court on the issues before it i.e. joint residence/sole residence/contact order) they will ONLY make a report on the CURRENT STATUS QUO of the parent schedule. i.e. what happens atm. They make NO reference to what happened before be it 2 weeks ago, 2 months ago or 2 years ago. A major failing , yes, but then CAFCASS are a failing organisation, underfunded, under-resourced and their staff are under-prepared and not sufficiently trained for their role. Sad but true.

If you have concerns about the childrens home environment at the ex's then what are your options? contact social services? (believe me, you DON'T want SS involved in your life)... what do you mean by a 'dangerous' environment please expand....

as to the schoolwork etc, the best way to approach this probably is via the school - do you have a good relationship with the school, maybe have a chat with the kids teacher or head (informally) about their progress etc and any worries they may have. Of course schools don't really want to get involved in the cross-fire of parental disagreement so tread carefully.

A SRO means that legally BOTH parents are equal - the child has a dads and a mums home of equal status. Many parents who don't have a SRO come into problems with LEAs, schools, medical authorities etc. Contact me off-forum for further info on shared parenting, my email addy is - jitsuka at hotmail dot com. I think there isn't that much you can do regarding what the child does on the ex's parenting time ... that's what being a parent is unfortunately.

CSA:

• it doesn't matter what the hell the CSA may believe or not. They have procedures to follow.

My best advice for CSA matters is to join NACSA (google them), I'm a member too.

Basically CSA decide who is the "resident" parent on the basis of who is in possession of the child benefit book. This is a passport to other benefits. The more overnights you have for the children, the less CSA monies the ex gets, so you see, there is a financial incentive for the ex to reduce the number of o/n's.

Is the ex on benefits? If so then she has to by law name dad otherwise she gets less money. Any chld maintenance that DP pays via the CSA .... well the ex gets an extra tenner a week, the rest goes to the treasury!

The CSA can only make a claim from the initial time of contact with DP, this probably include telephone contact. Usually CSA can't be backdated as any new claim can only be activated from the first time of contact. NEVER SPEAK TO THE CSA. Always communicate by letter - if they phone, tell them that you are requesting to communicate ONLY by letter and refuse to speak to them. This is because the CSA are completely incompetent and get things wrong so many times. With a written evidence of communication it's easier to prove if they get things wrong.

Usually the CSA will make a crap assessment. Use the CSA online calculator to caluclate your CSA assessment. The 'going rate' is 15% of net income with reductions for more than 52 overnight stays per year (i.e. by 1/7th) and further reductions for children that DP is responsible for - i.e. any new children that you have.

It's always worthwhile making any sort of child maintenance easily traceable i.e. by standing order to the ex marked "child maintenance" so that bank records can be printed off.

Feck the CSA off, they are a completely incompetent organisation.

keep strong, please contact me if you want any more help!
x

[143]

Actually, I am a very good family solicitor , qualified for 15 years - and always act in the best interests of the client. I am entirely focused on the parties in a case and not just one side.

It is clearly rubbish to catagorise all solicitors in same way. There are lots of good family lawyers out there and I hope that you find one - personal recommendation is the best way.