Hi Folks,
Just wanted to hear everyone's thoughts on using a solicitor for a divorce. My brother has had a nightmare of a time! He hired a solicitor as his ex wife was abusing him and chucked him out of the house. She took his car, passport and all his belongs and refused him access. They don't have any children...He went with a local solicitor and everything initially was going well. A few weeks into the divorce his solicitor who is the managing director of the law firm told him "I am going away for a few weeks so no one will be able to deal with your case" he was pretty shocked by this as in any business its normal to have someone to cover your work when your away.
Anyway she went away on holiday, when she came back he had a meeting with her to complete a voluntary Form E. During this process he went back to the house to collect his belongings as the house had been sold his wife refused him access and called the Police.
The police told him to come back when she had left the house and collect his items. He agreed with his wife (in front of the police) that he could return on Monday to collect his things. He went back on Monday and she had stripped the entire house including light fittings, door mats and carpets. He was really angry and upset and rang the solicitor who told him 'Why are you upset about loosing a couple thousand pounds worth of items, you need to focus on the Form E", to say he was livid was an understatement, he had lost everything he worked for , for the last 7 years, she had taken everything he owned including clothes, electronics, gym equipment and even his tools he needed for work. He spoke the police and they couldn't help.
He spoke to the solicitor again who said 'it's best to just focus on resolving this, I suggest you give 90% of the sales of proceeds to your wife so you can move on with your life". After this conversation he fired her...he told me why would he continue to pay the solicitor when she didn't even want to help him?
He then spent 3 weeks trying to find a new solicitor, most of the ones he spoke to were not interested in taking over an on-going case. He found a law firm that uses independent consultants, again for the first 6 / 7 months things were going okay although very very slowly..he was paying his solicitor £2,500 on average a month and little progress was being made. He came to the conclusion after 4 months in a row paying £2,500 for 1 phone call and 6 chaser letters that nothing was happening and the solicitor was essentially 'milking him dry'. He spoke to the solicitor and said all we need to do is agree the finances, on paper its simple, why don't we have a face to face meeting with the other party and resolve this? his solicitor came back and said "no it will cost you too much, you will need to pay £1K for my day rate and we might not get anywhere, its better we do this slowly and continue over the next several months to send letters". He replied saying "so its better I spend £10K sending letters with you than having one meeting that could resolve this", the solicitor replied "you don't understand how these things work it takes time", needless to say he fired him...and also wasted a lot of his money!
The last solicitor he hired was setting up a new law firm and said she was available to take on new clients, he explained the situation to her and she seemed great at first...she said she would definitely arrange a meeting with the other party and get to work asap. He sent her over his file , paid a £1500 retainer fee and waited and waited and waited...every week he asked her for an update she would say "sorry I am busy building my website, "sorry I have a photo shoot today", "sorry I am in meetings today", again after 1 month and no work done he fired her.
At this point I told him he really needed to get a grip on the situation and stop wasting his time and money changing solicitors, he said he would represent himself...and believe it or not wit the help of Wikivorce he has almost resolved the entire divorce in 4 weeks despite the second solicitor telling him it would take another 6-9 months to resolve...
My brother has been able to send chaser letters, telephone calls and emails to his hearts content to the other party without worrying about costs. He has continued to put the other party under pressure and they have finally come to the table and realised this matter isn't going to go away and go on for years..a signed consent order has been sent to the judge so this should all be over soon!
I do feel sorry for him, in total he has spent close to £45,000 on legal costs and wasted 16 months of his life, on such a simple divorce. All they had to do was agree how to split the sales of proceeds, but his ex wife who is a narcissist continued to delay things, accuse him of things, stopped responding etc, she did everything she could try and think of to make this drag on as long as possible!