Solicitor Expectations

[tron1039]

Hoping for some advice from anyone with more legal experience than me!

My husband was dismissed from his role for gross misconduct earlier this year and we strongly believe that this was unfair and outside of the reasonable range of responses. This belief was supported by a number of solicitors we spoke to who offered to take on the case no win, no fee / with reduced costs. Whilst I'm not a lawyer or an employment law expert, I am a HR Director so I was also able to have a view on the case from my own corporate experience.

The solicitor we chose has turned out to be really painful. His emails are consistently rude, he ignores information we send and questions we ask and has refused to itemise the work completed to date (to do so would cost more money). Most recently, he asked us to send information outlining loss of earnings which we did including a detailed breakdown - this took around one hour. He has now responded saying he had spent all day working on the summary which is one page long and despite us sending the information, his work contains eight separate errors.

My question is what we do next? We can complain and challenge him but I'm concerned that if he walks away we are left stuck. I'd actually prefer to not work with him but I don't know if it's an option at this point. Is this normal lawyer behaviour or am I right to feel that this is unacceptable?

Is he a ‘no win, no fee’? I only ask because it may say in his terms and conditions that even if you use another solicitor he can still take a fee (I don’t know if they do this, but I would check)

If it's a big firm then the file could move to someone better, otherwise just disinstruct him and find someone better.

Is he actually a solicitor out of interest?

How many years qualified is he? Is he partner or associate?

Will you be liable for the legal costs of the other party if you lose the case? ‘No win, no fee’ only refers to the costs of your own legal advisers.

I don't believe there is much point in complaining about a solicitor, there are some rude ones, and rather than prolong the unpleasantness, change solicitor.

There are rude solicitors despite what the "profession" likes to assert.

As to the fee for what has been done, well that might be a more concrete thing to dispute- "There were seven errors in the summary" so this is not worth £x, rather than "He was rude and horrible", true though that is.

Good luck with what must be a personally difficult situation.

Are you paying him on a time spent basis? If so he should be providing you with a breakdown of fees. Check the SRA website for guidance as to what he should be providing. If he refuses you can complain and then complain to the legal ombudsman, who will likely ask him to provide it.

The loss of earnings document is a bit more complicated - just because the output was one page doesn't mean it didn't take him a day to review and calculate this.

As PP said you need to be very clear as to what he is entitled to if you chose to change solicitor. If you need to change because he is useless though you can try and challenge this.

Thank you for all the responses. It's nice to get a sense check that we don't just have high expectations.

He took the case on a "no win, no fee" basis + reduced hourly fee (£100 vs. £300). This was consistent with offers we had elsewhere but we were sold on him due to his experience (20+ years working for both the employee and the employer). My biggest concern is his refusal to itemise how time is being spent although my cynical side would assume he's making up for the reduced offer in the first place.

It's a really frustrating situation on many levels. I really feel for everyone out there who's ever been faced with the decision to push for an employment tribunal. In all honesty, it's bordering on not being worth it and I can see how so many employers must get away with awful practice simply because the process is expensive and painful (even without tribunal fees). We will probably end up worse off as an outcome but I'm too stubborn to back out.