Solicitors account - how exact does this have to be

[greenberet]

Looking for thoughts from solicitors please.

Long back story solicitors terminated waiver before court hearing on acrimonious divorce at which point I told them would be making a formal complaint. Had some account queries prior to this that had not been resolved but had to pay a large amount off my bill to get file transferred to new representation.

Account queries were not a major part of my complaint initially however has become an issue since referral to the legal ombudsman.

My solicitors claim they have discounted my account by £20000 although I have proved this to be incorrect. There is an outstanding amount of £6000 odd although I am still disputing this but both solicitors and LO are giving me the runaround.

The legal ombudsman are trying to persuade me that my complaint is not worth pursuing as they do not think it likely they can offer more than this in compensation however the main crux of my complaint is that I feel I have been wrongly advised to the extent that the family home was sold prior to a valuation of the company jointly owned with ex husband due to X's complete manipulation of events and solicitor wanting to use house proceeds for ongoing fees.

I now believe their is dishonest activity on my account too but the LO have said they are not interested in exact figures.

Should my account be completely transparent with every charge identifiable and accountable. Despite having time ledger I am unable to agree final figures and requests for clarification are being dodged.
would I be better at this stage pursuing this through professional negligence route despite my deep concerns about professional capacity of legal profession including judge's opinion on my case.

At time of hearing I was told I had a strong case for appeal but due to my mental state at the time I was unable to pursue this.

Thanks for any opinions.

I have already told you, the time ledger does not have to duplicate the bill. Work isn't always recorded. The time ledger is an aide memoire not a definitive record. Other work on the file nog time recorded is still recoverable.

No. I work for a huge investment bank, use third party and solicitors, and even then won’t be able to get complete and accurate billing.

I'm sorry @MrsBertBibby if I have questioned this before -so am I just expected to pay it without them being able to evidence the work done - is this what you are telling me.

What work would be chargeable that is not recorded and why is some recorded but not all

As I said my account wasn't originally part of my complaint but when they started saying they had already reduced my account by £20,000 and since looking at it I can see that they have charged me twice for some pieces of work done by a junior and then duplicated by the solicitor I appointed- charged me for invoices I paid direct - and two different people have come up with different explanations on the same issue.

DuchyDuke - I'm not an investment bank I am an individual who has been ripped off by my solicitor -

Solicitor's bills are often based lawfull on a range of factors like value of the transaction, importance of the matter to the client and lots of other things, just not how many hours someone put in. You should not however be charged twice for work or was the work done by the junior and then the senior spent time just checking it thus saving you money than had the senior done all the work?

@Xenia what do you mean by value of the transaction? - value of assets in pot? Importance to the client? I was going through extremely acrimonious divorce.

All monthly time ledger accounts can be agreed up until solicitors terminated waiver - from this point on I am unable to agree their figures and to me it looks as though they are saying they have discounted my bill which I have not agreed purely to avoid an investigation by LO as it appears that they have already offered me a gesture. However as they cannot evidence this whereas everything else is documented I am unable to accept it

It just seems like one coverup after another.

Your engagement letter with the firm should tell you on what basis you are being charged. So it may be best to start with that. In some transactions another basis may be used- eg on business sales there may be one fee if the buyer buys the business and a lower one if not or a £20m deal because of its value and importance might justify higher fees than a lower value one even if the time spent is similar if that has been agreed.

When you say the montyl time ledger accounts can be agreed do you mean they had told you the cost this month is £x and then the next month they told you the next month's figure? I don't know much about divorce cases so am not the right person to ask but don't they invoice people every month as the case goes by? It sounds risky for both lawyer and client not to do that as otherwise big bills might build up and the risk of not getting paid on the lawyer side might increase?

Are you able to compare what work they did with what another firm might charge in the abstract to get a feel for whether they spent 5x as much as anyone else would have done on the same task?

Thanks Xenia for your replies - really think I need a divorce lawyer to answer - yes They bill month by month -my appointed solicitor left the firm and the MD took over - this is when my troubles started - I received a larger bill than normal one month and when questioned it found it included some invoices I had paid direct and duplicate fees - this was also the time I became a bit more clued up and started asking questions -all went downhill from here with MD trying to dodge answering questions and eventually terminating waiver to get out of having to do so.

This has been going on for nearly two years now as my mental health takes a bashing and then have to recover before I can pick up and try and go a bit further with it.