Ethical family lawyer

[Architect3000]

Does this even exist?
Someone who isn’t out to make as much money as possible
My experience of family lawyers so far has been the opposite

Ethical would mean protecting their client from the avarice of an ex partner.

Charging the going rate for their work is not part of ethical. That’s underselling yourself.

I think you may have misconceptualised the profession.

I do know family lawyers whose focus is minimising unproductive conflict, yes, if that’s what you mean. Ask for exactly what you would like in terms of an approach.

Protecting one's client's best interests within the law by ensuring that every possible financial entitlement has been verified and upheld is not unethical

Charging an appropriate rate for one's skilled work is not unethical.

If you don't want to secure all the assets you are entitled to in the interests of being nice, use a mediation service and diy your divorce without a legal professional looking out for your best interests.

If what you mean is that you want a legal professional with low fees - you can do that but you get what you pay for. The ones with low fees are less talented and experienced than the ones with higher fees.

I’ve been divorced twice. I used the same lawyer both times. Was it cheap? No. Was the service good? Yes. Legal services, like most professional services, are expensive. You’re paying for the years of experience that got the lawyer to the place from which they are able to protect your interests.

I’m a lawyer myself. Were I to need to pay the going rate for advice within my area of expertise to resolve a legal matter, I would find it financially painful to do so.

I am using the word ethical to mean “not out to fleece their own client” at the worst time of their lives

Hourly rates are high - but ok yes this is the going rate

But £30/40 to read or send an email, even for a short message, is a lot

£30/40 to read or send an email, even for a short message, is a lot

what’s your solicitor’s hourly rate? They usually charge in 6 minute increments, so reading an email is likely to cost ‘hourly rate : 10’

You could consider lawyers who are signed up to Resolution - committed to a constructive process.

If it’s just finances then I suppose the ethics would for me be if the fees are transparent and made known upfront.

Honestly I think you’re unreasonable with this. Typically solicitors have an hourly rate, for an average one lets say £250 an hour. For billing they often split the time into 6 min chunks to charge.

So if you want them to read an email, then reply or discuss with you, even if that only took 15 minutes that IS still £50 of their time. 6 mins = £25, x2 is £50.

It’s not cheap but the expertise a good one can provide is worth every penny.

A cheap one will also be a rubbish one which will end up costing you far more long term when you miss out.

Exactly - it didn’t take 10 min to read but a short email exchange can therefore quickly start to cost a lot and expenses spiral out of control

By the time you’ve read an email, reminded yourself of the context of the client, decided what to do with it and then filed it appropriately, I’d be astounded if it took less than 6 minutes.

I’m not a lawyer but in a profession that charges for time. I literally never think about how much revenue I’m creating when I do tasks or fill out my time sheet. I do what is ethically required, record this and then it gets billed at the hourly rate agreed with the client. There’s no active fleecing going on, and I think I speak for the vast majority of professionals when I say that.

Okay, then it looks as though your issue is the cost, not the ethics. £30/40 is likely to be around 10 minutes of their time. Do you think they should give their time away for free? it’s a well paid field.
if you’re looking for cheaper ways to proceed, there are options. With my divorce, my ex DH and I both had initial legal consultations to cover our interests then we worked out the split ourselves and did a DOY divorce. My current partner used a legal executive who specialised in family law. She was brilliant! It was a very much contested divorce and she was much cheaper than a solicitor.

You don’t mean ethical, you mean cheap.

To clarify : by ethical I mean one who isn’t out to profit maximise unnecessarily at a difficult time in a person’s life

But what you quote is just someone charging their declared rate, surely.

I had a very difficult divorce. XH was in prison, therefore had virtually limitless time to think of new ways to be difficult. He had also stolen a considerable amount of money from my mothers estate (which he was ultimately convicted for)
My solicitor was an expert in DV and coercive control, and helped me navigate keeping tge criminal case separate from the divorce. He managed to keep me out of mediation (which the system tries to force you into ) and advised me when to settle which ultimately saved me thousands.
Cheap - no. Good value- definitely.

They are charging their declared hourly rate, split usually into 6 minute blocks.

If you find a cheap one it’s going to cost you in the long run when you end up with a bad deal.

I Instruct lawyers (but not family) as part of my day job and my best advice for you on managing costs is to clearly boundary what you want them to do and make it as efficient as possible for them to do that.

For example recently I helped a family member with an employment issue and we had a solicitor appointment. I spent hours with the family member drawing up a comprehensive note with timeline history of the relevant facts and pulled together a folder of relevant documentation. We could then say - these are the facts - we want your advice on (eg) strength of unfair dismissal and discrimination claim, realistic settlement amounts and for you to write to the employer to threaten litigation and separately on a without prejudice basis to look to settle.

Their time is best spent once you have given them clearly summarised information and you get their advice on specific things rather than as a general sounding board/postbox for the other side.

Not sure why my point is being misunderstood on here. Am not complaining about the high going hourly rates. I am talking about the ethics of unnecessarily generating correspondence to profit maximise.

@Architect3000 can you give example of unneccessary correspondance?

Yes solicitors custs can be high but generally high legal fees are incurred due their clients unwillingness to cooperate, negotiate and accept any compromise and come from
a position of moral
rights, unrealistic demands and inability to be civil with their ex.

of course there are times when this is not the case but clients drive up their own costs in many cases

I like the phrase "you're not paying the plumber for banging on the pipes, you're paying him/her for knowing where to bang".
It might take 2 minutes to read your email, but you're paying a professional to correctly understand the legal implications, what needs to be done, how best to respond ..... etc... etc...
You don't want ethical, you want cheap. Well try someone without a law degree and see how that works.

Yes they absolutely do and there are very many of them. Many end up working for their clients on a pro bono or reduced fee basis as there is literally no legal aid for most these days and they can’t bear to see their clients flounder by trying to represent themselves.
Here’s a tip, avoid the flashy looking offices.

OP, could you get some one-off advice and then represent yourself, if money is tight. This is what I advise my clients to do in private Children Act proceedings. There's no legal aid for it anymore so I give them some basic advice, tell them which forms they need to complete etc and they do it themselves.
What kind of problem is it? Sorting out the finances? I appreciate this can be trickier but I'd still be tempted to do it myself.

An as the PP above me said: many of us offer basic advice and guidance for free/ reduced rate because we do actually care about the people we are helping. Although I do agree that the majority are out to generate as much money as they can from a case. As PP said - avoid flashy offices!

Where are you based? Our lawyers have an ethical code of conduct and are very good.