Divorce lawyer - is this normal?

All sounds a bit cowboy to me. Charging top firm prices with a one man band service. Have you seen the invoices, is he charging your £600/hr to do the admin as well, is his time split by 15mins, this should all be set out in your instruction docs. Personally I paid practically nothing up front and it all came off the pot at the end. But I did come across a fair few cowboys when I was first trying to sort representation, more than not frankly. To this day I have a horror of lawyers, it is not the noble profession they like to make it out to be.

If you've not filed in court yet for any of the hearings its still early days so if you dont like and dont trust him I would start looking for someone else. In the meantime you can instruct him not to do any work on your file and forward any correspondence to you, and you can decide if its worth replying to. Honestly not much is worth replying to unless you have purpose for it, dont jump to his tune.

Have you looked at a maintenance pending suit claim? If you're not coping and he is not being fair then I would get onto that in the first instance. Shouldn't be up to your parents to be funding his kids if circumstances you both agreed to mean you cant at the moment.

Have you filed for maintenance pending suit yet? That might help your money situation going forward. Otherwise to get around your immediate problem, you need to pay a sum on account. I think I usually had £5-10k in the client account. It is only going to get more expensive, especially if you need a barrister. If you know he's hiding assets, you have to persevere, it turns into a very expensive game to see who blinks first I'm afraid.

*sorry that should have said it is not usual to be billed per item of work - of course you have to pay for each item, just not usually daily.

I would move to a reputable, larger legal firm with specialists in family law. You have a high value divorce and you are being advised by one man who no doubt does a whole range of more general things. At £600 an hour he saw you coming, I think, sorry.

You should have had a letter at the start with the terms and conditions of payment. It’s not usual to pay per item of work. When I was going through legal stuff for divorce, I was invoiced quarterly and paid a monthly standing order to make sure it would be covered.
This was before the pandemic but I paid £250 an hour plus VAT. I would not pay another penny or instruct him any further until you have taken a second opinion from someone working in a proper legal firm with a family law specialism.

my other advice is to take a step back and consider whether what you are arguing about is really worth spending so much money on. Have you been to mediation to work out what you actually agree on? It is cheaper than exchanging lawyer’s letters. Stop asking your parents to finance this - £600 an hour to a one man outfit is a reckless waste of their money, I am sorry I know that sounds harsh, but this is not the best way forward for you or your DC.

Hi OP as a lawyer and former family lawyer we always asked for money on account first, that is a certain amount up front to cover initial costs, usually upto completing Form E. After that we’d bill monthly unless we had to pay for disbursements upfront like the accountant example. It doesn’t make sense for the lawyer to be emailing you after every letter sent/received, it just stresses you out and creates work for him. Can you ask him if you can pay monthly. Even monthly in advance to stop the daily chasing?

Well it’s not how mine did it. I paid a lump sum up front, then when that was used up I paid another one. When the work was concluded we settled up with a final bill which was actually a payment to me as the final lump sum was not all used up. Your lawyers way sounds very stressful at an already stressful time.

Sorry posted in error.

They set out the basis on which fees are calculated but are not allowed to give a specific fee.

There are typical stages in the divorce proceedings, and costs can be estimated for these.

The bulk of legal fees are paid after settlement, and are usually in the order of €30 - €60k (of course much higher in cases of HNW individuals or where it goes to the High Court).

Above is based on anecdotal experience & my own of getting divorced.

My solicitors were shocking. But what you describe is dreadful & seems unworkable.

Do you have a letter of engagement from your lawyer? Does it set out his terms and conditions? You should and it should. £600 is expensive; he should be very professional.

I haven't read all the replies but this isn't standard in Ireland.

Usually you pay a significant retainer in family law proceedings, like €5k. They or

That is ridiculous. Of course he wants to be paid, like anyone else selling services or goods. He can also want the best outcome for you and have your interests at heart.

Would you work for free?

That is precisely why he wants money on account. If you can’t afford him, there’s a risk that he won’t get paid for his work.

Lots of clients run up invoices they can’t afford to pay and then it gets very messy.

You either need to find a cheaper solicitor or reach an alternative agreement with him about how you will guarantee payment (eg through a charge on your property).

Two things:

• any out of pocket costs (court fees / barristers fees / forensic accountants fees etc etc) must be paid in full before the solicitor can use them. Are some of these costs OOPs? It’s entirely standard / reasonable for work to halt if these haven’t been paid
• his rate is presumably £500 plus VAT. That’s not outrageous at all (whoever said corporate lawyers charge less isn’t using a major firm- that’s a senior associate rate at best)

if there is proper money involved, have you discussed litigation funding?

This!

Just a random thought but if there is financial shenanigans - would it be more cost effective to hire a forensic accountant for missing funds and have the lawyer on retainer until you are on more solid ground with what is going on? I know from my own divorce how much the emails and letters add up and if your ex is not playing fair, they could just string it out. Lawyers are the only people who truly benefit from contentious divorces. Good luck!

Yes. If you don’t trust them, book someone else.

They dont care about your situation. They care about making as much money as possible.

This is not normal. Invoicing should be monthly or after a particular chunk of work has been completed. I’d have a quiet, polite word with him to ask to clarify his billing practices and agree something sensible and workable on both sides. Also if you have any doubts about him, move to another lawyer asap. Even one more expensive. Legal fees are painful but worth it in the long run as you’ll get a better outcome in the settlement.

Firstly, I'd agree with others that £600 an hour is very high for a private client solicitor - I work at a large corporate firm and that's in line with the top rate charged for our most senior partners.

Contentious private client matters are always tricky from a financial standpoint and I know that at the firm I trained at our accounts team were really hot on making sure that we didn't get too deep in the hole on matter involving individuals. Cash on account was required much of the time, or else monthly invoices paid in line with our payment terms.

Your engagement letter from him should set out the expectations around billing and payment and service should be provided in line with that - I would make it clear during any interactions around payment of invoices that you will comply with those terms. Chasing in less than 24 hours is inappropriate - if cashflow is genuinely that tight on your solicitor's side then they need to take a look at how they're doing things.

You should have been provided with payment terms before agreeing to use this solicitor. Ask for them now.

I'm a lawyer (not family). We bill our (corporate) clients on a monthly basis, and then credit control chases them if they're unpaid after a month or so. I imagine private client is a bit more pushy, but I've never known a solicitor to issue an invoice the same day as the work is done and chase for it before 7am the following day. Fair enough if they want money on account, but if you've paid in a day or two usually, then this seems very odd to me.

Your initial post said my lawyer is roughly £600. Can you clarify that you really do mean £600 per hour?! For effectively a one-man band, even if he is operating from central London or another major city, that is an incredibly high hourly rate. Where did you find this lawyer, was he a recommendation from someone trusted? His rate plus his billing per every piece of work carried out and immediate chasing of monies owed all gives me bad feeling.

Wow. Him essentially badgering you to pay instantly is really worrying. I’d instruct another, cheaper, lawyer.

If he is personally chasing you for payment within 24 hours this sounds to me like he is in financial difficulties. I would be looking elsewhere OP.

And with a budget of less than £600 per hour.

If you are paying your lawyer to answer every email and query the costs will stack up. You may want to change to a model whereby you get him to do specific tasks eg financial order. Rather than deal with all correspondence. Or ask if he has a junior who can take over some of it.