Do you think Solicitors tell their clients when they are behaving unreasonably 🤔

[WTF202333]

Divorcing ExH and he was ignoring correspondence or responding rudely to my solicitors emails.

I gave up and initiated the court route for divorce / financial remedy. He then got himself a solicitor at the eleventh hour. Great, I thought! We’ll start to see some progress.

Nope, he has submitted a half hearted form E with at least 50% of the info missing, is not responding to correspondence re the children etc.

He pays a measly amount of maintenance (he’s Limited Company - so another long story) so we have requested interim maintenance until we get sorted and his solicitor has said he will defend our claim all the way. No negotiation. Im receiving approx 3% of his income for 3 children before people assume Im out for what I can get - im genuinely not.

There seems to be no thought for the children involved whatsoever. I’m hoping his solicitor has suggested to him that he is behaving like a massive knobhead and he’s just refusing their advice.

thoughts?

I've heard from a solicitor friend strictly off the record that they are wards of court and therefore if you are the higher earner and you do entirely what your solicitor advises you often end up getting shafted (e.g they will always tell you not to quit your job, but off the record apparently it's not a bad idea to be unemployed at a FH if you're aiming for a clean break. Ex might get more of the assets on the day but tends not to get anything other than CM long term). He's probably been given the same advice but is pushing his luck. Chances are his solicitor is advising him otherwise and he is ignoring it.

I can[t say for sure but I think my STBXHs barrister has dropped him.
He was being totally ilegal.
He seems to have a much inferior local one.

I'm a family solicitor.
I have to follow my clients instructions.

That does not mean I don't think they are dicks or they have not been advised accordingly.

It also does not mean I don't have massive sympathy for the other side and can completely understand why they are divorcing them.

My Stbxh wouldn’t get a solicitor at first.

I instigated the divorce. He kept emailing, texting and verbally telling me what we should do (what he wanted), what he thought was fair (it wasn’t), why I shouldn’t ask for 50/50 etc etc. He was also pretty rude and nasty at times.

After 6 months he finally got a solicitor. The mean and nasty stuff has stopped. He’s still being manipulative though. I am assuming his solicitor explained why it wouldn’t look good for him if some of the things he had said and written came out.

He is a very forceful person, who always thinks he is right, so I suspect his solicitor can only do so much.

You just have to put faith in yours.

You should be out to get what you can get. You shouldn't be left high and dry financially. Many people think SAHPs for example, should be left with not very much at all.

I don't really agree with this. What a lot of people who divorce SAHPs think is not that they shouldn't be left with very much at all but rather that they should only get a fair share of the assets and that they should seek eventual independence. This especially tends to be the case where a SAHP becomes better off financially from a settlement than they would have done had they never married or had children.

I'd have been absolutely fine with a settlement where my ex-wife got half of the assets and child maintenance using the government formula. This would already have left her in a significantly better position than her chosen career path would have put her in. What I didn't agree with was her opinion that she should get 80% of the joint assets including a full transfer of the house with only a toothless "best endeavours" clause to remove me from the mortgage and a full half of my income until she retired (she was in her late 30s at the time).

My view on a divorce settlement with my ex-wife - which I find is very common among "earner" spouses who are divorcing - is that she should mitigate her situation by maximising her earning capacity and downsizing her lifestyle to one she was capable of supporting herself (had she had a career with decent earning potential before children a conversation about compensatory maintenance might be reasonable but otherwise ex-spouses should be expected to downsize to match their own earning capabilities). Only after this if she still couldn't afford to house, feed and clothe herself in the most basic way should any kind of maintenance question arise and even then it should be temporary. People should be allowed to move on with their lives and there should be a minimum expectation of divorcing couples that each spouse can function as an independent adult unless there is clear medical evidence to the contrary.

Luckily, I can only assume her solicitor advised her to settle because she got a divorce much closer to what I offered than the one she wanted. So to answer the OP again, yes solicitors might quietly have a word with their clients sometimes!

@BetterFuture1985 of course people should seek work etc.

But don't forget a couple during a marriage agreed one of them would stay at home for family / children and as a result their cater has stalled or completely halted whilst the other person's career has continued or even soared.

The sahp then has to pick up from where they were years ago and will likely never catch up. This also means their contribution to family and supporting their spouse is completely undervalued.

But then women's work has always been undervalued.

@BetterFuture1985 however your ex's requests do seem extraordinarily high.

I disagree with some of these things too.

1. It's not always a mutual agreement that one person works and the other does not. In my marriage, my wife refused to work and it was an issue of growing resentment throughout our marriage, but what could I do about it? The only option is divorce and until her affairs it wasn't enough of a reason for divorce but I certainly wasn't happy about it. It is better to describe being a SAHP as a lifestyle choice in 2023 and no assumptions should be made that it is a mutual decision.

2. My wife never had a career to give up. Any lost work would be more than adequately compensated with a 50/50 split of assets. I do concede that where a career is given up, the compensatory principle might be a good one but in practice it's going to be quite rare (because in 2023, people with good careers don't tend to give them up. SAHPs are far more likely nowadays to be people who can't earn as much as childcare would cost).

3. Contributions should be valued equally but unless earner spouses are firm in divorce, often it is their efforts rather than the SAHP's whose efforts are completely undervalued. Or their ability to "catch up" from an unfair split of assets is exaggerated.

I’ve wondered this too. My ex has put in Form E and financial disclosure which does not reflect the truth at all. Also so many lies about various things. He’s also not really got a leg to stand on in the areas he’s contesting. I’ve wondered whether solicitor is not advising him properly or whether he’s ignoring their advice and carrying on regardless. He’s spending so much money on but ultimately isn’t even going to gain what he spent on this whole charade.