Solicitors firm can no longer act for us due to a ‘conflict that has arisen.’

[user1488481370]

Have posted before. We started legal proceedings against MIL’s estate in may. A pre action letter was sent out to the executors in October. Despite being up to date with payments, sending emails and trying to contact the legal executive dealing with our case, we’ve only just been made aware this morning that the firm can no longer act for us. Of course I’ve asked them to elaborate but I’m expecting they won’t be able to, they’re going to pass the matter onto our next chosen solicitors.

What does this mean? Is it likely that they’ve worked for one of the other beneficiaries in the past or even on the same matter? Surely they have cross compliance checks for this sort of thing and would’ve realised before now? Is it an ominous sign for our case? Have they given us the wrong advice? I just can’t understand why months down the line we’ve been dropped, been met with a wall of silence from them all the while having to live in close proximity to family members who are trying to make our lives hell and put OH out of business.

I would assume they're also representing another member of the family, though that might not be on the same matter.

This can sometimes be code for 'we don't want to act for you any more'

I don't think they are obliged to tell you why they are choosing not to act and so it could be any number of reasons.

@FunnysInLaJardin this is what’s worrying me.

However it is probably that one of the extended family members has used them previously.

We’ve had confirmation that they’ve acted or are acting for OH’s brother. Seems they’ve been negligent in performing checks and BIL has been very tactical!

We had a medical expert write a report for us then wrote a report for the defendents. Farcical

An expert witness is supposed to be neutral, so their evidence should not depend on which side engaged them. It is therefore not necessarily a conflict of interest for them to write reports for both sides.

We’ve been informed that the firm can no longer work for either us or BIL! So looks like we’ll have to change our firm of solicitors. They haven’t done the correct cross checks, I thought they had databases for these sorts of things. We think BIL has tried his look to delay proceedings and been successful!

@user1488481370

We’ve been informed that the firm can no longer work for either us or BIL! So looks like we’ll have to change our firm of solicitors. They haven’t done the correct cross checks, I thought they had databases for these sorts of things. We think BIL has tried his look to delay proceedings and been successful!

There's nothing on our database that would indicate whether clients are linked unless they'd been acted for together previously. Several members of my family have been clients where I work but not by the same person and the respective solicitors won't know that my MIL and BIL - or even me - are related or linked.

That’s pretty poor. When doing conflict checks for litigation you have to check the names of all relevant parties - the claimant, the defendants, and relevant third parties. Something has definitely gone wrong if they also accepted instructions from your BIL. I would make a complaint if I were you.

@StCharlotte - we have the same surname and pretty much the same address and postcode as BIL so I’m struggling to understand how something g w want flagged up sooner. I’m really shocked that they don’t carry these checks out! @User156 yes we’re not impressed, we’ve been told it won’t affect DH’s case and we get to keep his barrister but it’s still a huge inconvenience!