Terminating my legal solicitor.

[user1486131602]

Can someone please advise as to how I terminate my legal aid solicitor.

I was granted a nisi a year ago for his abuse, with legal aid.

My solicitor has done nothing to protect my position and has allowed him 9 months to supply financial statement, all the while his manipulation of my monetary situation has been allowed to continue.

I warned her of this in our first meeting, and in writing and still it has been allowed to continue.

Each time I try to express my feelings of doubt I am told ‘ I can close your file if you don’t want to continue’

So, back to the problem:

I don’t want to change to another legal aid solicitor, I would like to terminate her services.
Should I go to the law society or legal aid ?

I am 10 months down the line from my nisi divorce and i still don’t have a clue what’s going!

Could someone please advise?

What are you planning to do afterwards? Find a different solicitor or represent yourself?

The retainer you signed at the beginning of the process will explain the termination procedure. My advice is to go through the practice's complaints procedure in the first instance. This is usually needed to change legal aid solicitor or to progress a complaint to the legal services ombudsman.

Purplequalitystreet.

My parents are going to fund my divorce ( financial and absolute) privately and I am going to engage a solicitor who is more assertive.
I have sought 2 more opinions from other solicitors as to what should have been done. Their advice, both of them , was polar opposite to what mine ( hasnt) done!

I have not been given a copy of the retainer.

I am totally serious when I say I don’t know anything, she has seen his financials and still wont Discuss things!

I have already complained to her directly, in front of a witness, and emailed my complaint.

As she is the partner at the practice, I dont think things can be resolved at this stage. And, neither do I want them to be.

So, what do I need to do to terminate her services?

Any advice would be helpful!

Would you be able to get legal aid again? Can you afford not to?

I am assuming I could , as my monetary position is now worse!

However, my experience with this solicitor has put pay to that!

And the private solicitors, for want of a better description, seemed to be wholly more assertive and robust in protecting me and my position, not just waiting with the softly approach! The very first piece of advice she gave me ‘ don’t go to the CSA for the children as we don’t want him to have any reason to not sign the divorce petition’
He didn’t sign it for another 6 months and made sure I paid for it!

In hindsight and having had separate advice I can see this along with other advices has not been in my best interests. Also, the private solicitors have advised that I should ask the court for him to pay all costs for delaying. No mention of that from the legal aid solicitor!

It’s just a mess and I want it over!

Are you planning to instruct one of the non legal aid solicitors you've contacted? If you are, just get them to guide you through the process.

Normally, you'd simply contact the first solicitor and say that you've decided to instruct X instead going forward and can they transfer the file over. They should do that once you've paid their fees (ie just the same as if you were switching decorator). I don't know if the legal aid part makes it more complicated though which is why you'd be better off finding someone else you want to use and getting them to talk you through it.

I don't know much if anything about family law but just a note of caution to say that it's easy to tell you what rights you've got but far more nuanced as to whether it's worth pursuing them either because of the cost of doing so, the likelihood of getting them enforced and how the process is going generally.

GU24MUM

Thank you for your straightforward reply.

I understand that the advice and processes entered into would be different from another solicitor. But without listing what has happened and what has not been done, I still feel that I need to change.

Thank you again x

I got laughed out of one solicitors office for saying I wanted to change who I had legal aid with.

Fenlandmountainrescue

I do want to change to another legal aid solicitor.

I want to terminate my legal aid solicitor!