Why do solicitors always seem so slow

[Messeduptheplan]

For things like conveyancing, probate etc, especially where it’s uncomplicated, why do solicitors seem so slow?

Targets means they have to take on huge amounts of work. The incentive of bonuses as well if they make over their target every month means taking on more and more clients.

Also, greedy management have taken away support staff or don’t replace them, meaning that solicitors have to do everything, including all admin on top of eye watering targets. If you’re not meeting your target, you get interrogated and fear for your job.

I work in this area, as an assistant thankfully. My DH is a solicitor though, and has been known to work until 1am and all weekend to meet target.

A solicitor I was assisting (probate) used to shake with fear (literally) before every target review. They were so nasty to him.

That sounds difficult. Is it a small or large firm?

Because if you were their only client, it would cost you eye watering amount. Besides, they have to wait on other agencies. Thinking of conveyancing specifically, searches can take several weeks to return from some councils. Enquiries depend on two solicitors communicating and, often, seller chasing someone else or arranging requested documentation. I currently have 9 enquiries pigged with a seller providing documentation for various installations, some of which happened as far back as 2002. Do you have any paperwork lying around from your plumber or the receipt for your boiler? Or building control report for patio doors installation from 15 years ago? Me neither.

Solicitors are not necessarily slow. I know lots of them, they all.work in a high volume conveyancer and they have around 100 files or more. They are heavily targeted on getting files to certai. "Milestones" aka by x date you need A B C to be completed on the file. But because they have so many files each file may hit a milestone per week. Some conveyancers can only work your file 1x per week which allows for responses from the other parties....

To be competitive and make any money in that kind of legal work you need to have a massive case load and deal with high volumes. Massive case load and high volumes mean things just don’t get done as fast as they would if they just acted for you.

There’s a big difference between expecting someone to drop everything or treat me as their only client and waiting three months for them to contact utility companies or advise on probate.

Because they take on too much work. Drag things out to add on costs. Have finally come under the treat of being disbarred and or sued for mucking up so get searches done that are unnecessary and or over the top. It's not actually a solicitor but a para legal

Perm any of the above and oh, did I say drag things out and make unnecessary communications to increase costs...

I bought my first property in 1986, before the Internet and before computers did very much at all. Everything for the conveyancing was done on paper and by post.

It was much faster than these days...

I worked for a lady in her 90s who was waiting 5 years to settle her late husband's estate...most was going to her and there were a couple of trusts written into the will by the same solicitor. I was her gardener but have in a past life, huge experience of dealing with solicitors, so I wrote a stinking complaint letter...the final document came through and they'd not even spelt her name right..there were over 20 errors... sadly she couldn't face complaining further.

Sympathy to you OP as a service being provided very slowly is incredibly frustrating.

I echo what PP have said re the pressure of very high volume low margin work. I'm a solicitor in a very different practice area and constantly amazed at how conveyancer in particular survive.

@NotAnotherScarf these sorts of work are almost invariably fixed fee so not sure how you think dragging things out means more fees?

Find a much more expensive firm
I moved all my conveyancing files along swiftly - but people/businesses very much paid for the privilege!

If you pay Aldi prices you get an Aldi experience

Also - top tip, chase once a week. And always turn your bits around immediately. And lean on your estate agents - make them earn their commission by chasing the other side and their lawyers

You hit the nail on the head. Pay cheap get cheap service. Solicitors have the same cost of living pressure as everyone else. You pay cheap expect to wait as they will have a high volume of clients to make the same money.

Because while one case is simple and straightforward, most solicitors have hundreds and so do the solicitors acting "for the other side". It's simply the sheer volume of cases, plus if something really urgent comes up - usually involving a Court or contractual deadline - everything else grinds to a halt.

Those were the days before bulk conveyancing factories took off, people probably paid a lot more (relatively speaking) for conveyancing services.

It’s a myth that solicitors want to drag stuff out for more fees. In my experience, it’s far more likely that they want stuff concluded and off their desk.

We had three elderly family members die one after the other all within a year. Each one was the beneficiary of the previous one, so three estates to sort out. Took 6 years and cost £18k. Death is an expensive business - and that's not including the cost of 3 funerals.

And billed!

Used to work for a conveyancing company doing IT for them. They tried an experiment at one point with taking on a smaller case load to see if they could speed things up.

While it meant that they could get their side of things done quicker, they still ended up having to wait for the other side to get back to them. They lost money due to the smaller case load, and were sat twiddling their thumbs a lot of the time because all their cases were up to date their side, but couldn't progress things.

In short, it makes no business sense for a firm to lower their case load unless every single other firm they have to deal with does the same thing. Which is never going to happen.

I have previously turned around a house sale and purchase in a very tight timeframe as a favour to a commercial property client BUT they were royally charged for it. You get what you pay for. And I had to badger the other side incessantly which is not easy as a junior fee earner speaking to a Partner on the other side (national v high street firms!)

Well if you pay £600 an hour you can get a 100 page corporate loan agreement negotiated and signed in a matter of days. I used to work all night - literally all night - with huge teams of lawyers and conclude huge deals in a few weeks. The bill would be in the six figures. Lawyers of different calibre work in different types of practice and a different speeds.

Then there is the horrible pressure some are under to process high volume low margin work.

There are some brilliant conveyancing solicitors who take on sensible work loads and are incredibly speedy and efficient - but they won’t be the cheapest. You get what you pay for.

This 💯

Because you don't pay enough.

Services like probate and conveyancing tend to be fixed fee, and they can achieve that my volume. This means they have huge case loads where fee earners (often not solicitors) will process matters according to schedule. So, .e.g Friday 10am they are scheduled to check the files of Messeduptheplan where a admin would have filed anything that comes in. Something comes in on Friday 2pm it waits till the next time they are scheduled to check it. Some are not so rigid, but generally they don't deal with things immediately for that reason. The huge case load means things come in all the time too. The other thing is they are generally liaising with government departments for inputs and approvals which are notoriously slow.

You can avoid it by paying a reputable private client firm by their hourly rate, but I doubt that would be very palatable unless it's a massive estate.

And yes, you definitely get what you pay for. I'm fast and efficient and my fees are high, but people are happy to pay for a quality service. If they're not, I don't want them as clients anyway tbh.

I'm a residential property solicitor. I work in a support role now, but having worked for all types of firms over the last 20 years I would recommend a self-employed consultant for conveyancing work.