Unexperienced solicitor - wwyd

[JTro]

Today I found out that the law firm's partner appointed an unexperienced solicitor to take care about our house purchase (this solicitor has 3 months experience in another law firm and 9 months in current law firm). A bit worry that he does not have enough experience and can mess up. His name is not even on the firm's website, where usually you can check who is working for this law firm. Should I speak with the partner and ask him to give our purchase to more experienced solicitor or I'm just over reacting? We have an overage clause in our purchase which we want to negotiate and make sure it's done in right way.

The solicitor is probably being supervised and has up to date knowledge.

This is completely normal - partners v rarely actually handle conveyancing files but will retain a degree of oversight and supervision where required. Most conveyancing is handled by paralegals or legal execs anyway so I wouldn’t be concerned by this at all assuming this is a residential transaction not a complex commercial acquisition.

I’m sure he won’t be doing the work unsupervised. IME house sale work is often done by pretty junior staff.

If that's all they've done for 13 months then unless your purchase is quite complicated I'm not sure I'd consider this an issue. She/he will work on multiple houses at a time so has potentially completed lots in that time period.
Ask who the supervising partner is and how frequently the work is reviewed.

Well my experience with newly qualified solicitors hasn’t been great - they were assigned because my sale seemed to be quite straightforward. However, they weren’t pushy enough when I needed them to be and the purchaser abandoned the sale 2 days before the exchange. Just something to bear in mind.

ask them if they are being supervised and explain what you’re wanting negotiated and say that you would like someone with experience in the matter. You are their client.

Everyone has to learn in their job, the Solicitor will be supervised I would not worry

If it's complicated the partner will be checking the TR1 (assuming England) and that all is as agreed in the overage. Our sellers (Scotland admittedly- I'm English qualified) had an experienced but incompetent and lazy solicitor who didn't listen to us on some issues that arose. Give me a newer solicitor with the ability to listen and the ability to ask their boss over an arrogant know it all experienced person any day!

An NQ solicitor is rather more experience d than a never-ending stream of changing paralegals or trainees as well.

There are also requirements to supervise anyone under 3 years' pqe.

So you should be fine. Give them a chance and if the overage negotiation gets messy then get the partner involved (or don't get involved with overage...)

This law firm is small and local. We used them 15 years ago when we purchased our current house and were very happy with appointed solicitor (very experienced lady, who gave us a lot of good advices, she is retired now). They have 2 partners there (one is the main one, who own the firm and who appointed this young solicitor to our case). They now have a very experienced in conveyancing solicitor, everyone I spoke to are very happy with her. But we've got a "young" one and because of the "Overage clause" added by the seller, I'm a bit worried. Do you think it will be ok if we contact this partner and ask who will supervise him?

It should be in your engagement letter who the supervising partner is.

We have not got our engagement letter yet, just an email from the partner and that our solicitor will contact us soon

Can't see the issue op. Our last two purchases were dealt with by the legal exec/para legal. Cost £6k - not entirely straightforward. Did a brilliant job. Was supervised by the conveyancing partner who undoubtedly had to do nothing.

The partner probably doesn't have the head space for it. Conveyancing isn't exactly trust planning or contentious lit.

RosesAndHellebores Thanks, feel a bit better now:)

Like others have said, I wouldn't worry about this. My first house purchase was done by a junior/new solicitor to the firm, and was supervised by one of the named partners. Absolutely no issues at all, very on the ball and never had to chase him.

5 years later that junior became a partner in that firm, and ironically, one of our new neighbours when we next moved 😂

As others have said dont see what the problem is. I would think that for 90%+ of houses sold the conveyancing is just an administrative process of changing one owner to the other and following the pricedure for checks/ surveys/liaising with banks etc - anyone who can follow a checklist and log on to a website can do it.

In time I wouldnt be surprised if this is automated more so there wont be a lawyer at all.

What you are paying for is the sign off from the partner/ qualifed lawyer which gives the reassurance that it has been done properly and also that you have a comeback if it does go wrong.

We had a trainee solicitor for sale and purchase (not straightforward). Absolutely fine. Supervised and every detail was looked at and explained to us. House purchase is bread and butter to solicitors. Also new solicitors must be trained. They have to start somewhere! DD is a barrister and the same applies to them. They are all competent and have access to more experienced barristers if the need arises.

In fact anyone doing any job starts at some point with not as much experience as their older peers. Doctors, engineers etc.

Just to put a couple of differing experiences to the others, my friend is having issues with a trainee conveyancer on the sale of her father’s property. There’s someone who appears to be a trainee dealing with the sale of a property subject to a deed of trust that I have inherited a share in.

They have told the trustee that the the sale proceeds are to be distributed 3 ways amongst surviving beneficiaries rather than the 4 ways 2 probate solicitors have said having read the Deed of Trust and the trainee has advised about what happens in the event of the Trustee predeceasing the property sale which isn’t correct either.

As a result I am incurring solicitor charges to deal with them to safeguard the share for my side of the family and although they don’t know it yet I think the Trustee will most likely need to pay for a second will to be drawn up.

I don’t blame the trainee although they appear to have missed something incredibly basic, it rests on their supervision. Caused a massive amount of stress at a difficult time . On the flip side a legal executive is handling our sale under supervision and has been great.

60% of the work will be done by a legal secretary. All the checks, forms, searches etc are run of the mill stuff. This will be overseen by a 'fee earner'. Basically a legal secretary who has done a few qualifications. Any issues will then be passed to one of the senior partners if required. Your case will probably have 3-4 people who do this every day. The trick is to find a good solicitors who have knowledge, experience and professional people in all of those positions. My partner has done the legal secretary position for over 25yrs and can run circles around the senior partners when it comes to spotting mistakes and issues but if i had said your case was being looked after by a secretary you would probably be dissapointed.

NQs / junior sols are supervised (senior sols are also supervised) given the risk of being sued if they get it wrong. A lot of work may also be carried out by paralegals - you just won't know that.

And I've been at many law firms where you won't find me from searching (and I've got 10 years post qualification experience - different area of law). Law firms are not always known for their technical prowess and their websites can be rubbish / difficult to navigate.

You can look them up here www.sra.org.uk/consumers/register/

Doesn't tell anybody anything other than their date of qualification when the OP already seems to know that.

They’ll be heavily supervised and keen to please/impress. A winning combo I think.

I know @kirinm (I’m a solicitor) but OP also mentioned that the firm’s website doesn’t even mention they work there, which it would confirm.

A quick update: we do regret our decision to continue with that unexperienced solisitor - the only thing she has done so far is opened a file for our case, she works 3 days a week, sometimes 1 day a week, whatever she chose and we can't get hold of her to discuss when she starts finally working. Maybe someone can give us an advice: where we stand now if we want to change a solicitor and how to approach it with her (well, when she finally answer our emails or calls)?

Go straight to the partner in charge of your file.
This shows that conveyancing as a part-time fee earner doesn’t work.

Ask who her supervisor is. Set out your concerns to them in writing and say you want someone else to work on your file. If you want to use a different form you’ll need to check how much cost you’ve incurred - I imagine you’d need to pay for the work they have done already, however minimal.