Solicitors letter - how does it work?

[Honey83]

Hi all
Just had a question hoping someone can answer.

I had a recent phone call with a solicitors where I requested a letter be sent out to another party. This is the first request.
I haven’t heard anything for a few days which is fine as a timescale wasn’t mentioned. They said yes they would be able to send a letter out would open a case and someone would come back to me.

Do they normally come back to check the contents of letters to be sent out? Or should I expect that this will just be sent out and the follow up is to discuss the fee I need to pay?

I have no idea how this works!

Thanks in advance x

Hi OP, it’s difficult to say without knowing what you requested but in general terms...

Your solicitor should send you a client engagement letter and terms of business which outlines the work they’ve agreed to do and the agreed fee. You will need to sign and return this to confirm that you understand and agree.

You will be likely to need to provide ID (photographic and proof of address) for money laundering purposes.

They may ask for additional evidentiary documents from you so they have the full picture.

Once the above has been done they should send you a proof letter for approval. Once you’ve approved it then it will be sent out. Only routine and simple correspondence wouldn’t require client approval.

Hope that helps.

Oh and I should add - we would always send the initial client engagement documents out within 24 hours so it’s odd you haven’t heard from them after a few days! Maybe worth a follow up phone call?

Thanks for your reply. Sorry I should have thought!

It’s basically relating to probate. A letter will be sent to address to the property that my brother lives at advising him that it will need to be sold (we jointly inherited from my father)

Does the client engagement come through the post? That could be the delay then as I was expecting a phone call! I live in Ireland! They did take my address on the initial phone call.

Email them and ask.

I suspect probate is a lot slower than business law but they may just need a reminder. Also you have nothing in writing/email yet and they have to get that, show ID etc etc before work starts. You also need to be told costs and that kind of thing.

If you have requested a letter be sent to someone (once the new client admin is done) usually they would show you the letter first. Ask them to see a draft of it by email so you can check it.

In England Letter of engagement can be sent by email. Suspect the delay is due to workload and the solicitor not having got around to it. No harm in dropping them an email or calling to follow up. Could they be waiting for a payment on account of their fees? Usually I wait until that has been received and ID has been provided.

Thanks for your replies all.

Yes I think workload must be the delay. The reviews online were great but I have just noticed they are listed as having less than 10 employees in the firm :/ Just hoping that I am not going to be chasing ongoing as the case in question, the issue has been unresolved for a long time so quite desperate to get it closed.

I haven’t been made aware of any fees so I know they aren’t waiting for payment. I will follow up tomorrow and see if they have the new client admin docs for me.

Probate via solicitors can be very slow. I was involved in a bequest and it took about 14 months. However it did involve tracing missing heirs.

Yes, I think it is much slower. I am a very small firm and do not do probate but reply to everything quickly as that is the norm for business clients. With probate it tends to be slower. I would chase them up however in case they have simply not got round to taking you on as a client yet.

The probate is actually all done. I did that process myself so it is literally just sending a letter out at this point The guy said it was only an hours work for them. So probably (at least at this point) low value

Rather than just not know, I would tend to email, than them got their time and ask when you should expect to receive a copy of the letter or a draft for review.

It can be enough to remind them or, worst case, give you some idea of the time line to expect. I always ask when to expect ...

Yes chase it up. Today a client chased me for something of 3 days ago. I had replied twice. For some reason he had not had either email. I was very glad he chased it because then we realised there had been that communication failure.

That’s a very small firm and could account for the delay, but it depends how much admin support they have.

I’ve worked in a firm that size and still got the documents out the same day or the next day however busy I was! My current firm has an entire department dedicated to opening client files and sending letters out so it varies hugely how it’s dealt with.

I would send it out by email, very rarely by post unless specifically requested.

Thanks everyone really helpful ☺️

I followed up as advised and had a response that day and client care letter received the next day. They have received ID and confirmed the would start working on the matter.

In the client care letter the timeframe for the matter to be resolved is 1-2 months. I read this as the whole process, to include some further advice. But it looks like it will be a month before the letter in question will be sent out. I was thinking if by next week to ask how things are coming along if I don’t receive any update. Does this sound reasonable of me?

I completely appreciate how busy solicitors must be with their caseloads and I'm not an impatient person its just I was told in the initial consultation that it would be not much more than an hour’s work.