Finding an SEN solicitor

[GarethC]

Hi I started this same thread on the legal advice part of special needs but that seems to not get much traffic so I'm putting here as well.

Anyway, Our 8 yr old is profoundly autistic. He's in a very good LEA autistic day school but they say (and we agree) that he's too severe for them. He?s been accepted by a fantastic residential school but our LEA won't fund and are trying to put him into a totally inappropriate SLD day school. We?ve got a pile of evidence from a range of professionals saying he needs residential provision but the LEA just ignore.

We now know were going to have to go to tribunal to get him there so wonder if anyone can offer advice on good solicitors in the East Surrey/West Kent area (or in London if need).

Would contact SOSSEN as they are Surrey based BUT they are not themselves SEN Solicitors.

Have heard good things about Levenes in N London.

I have used Levenes, and found them to be very good.

we were after (and won - LA settled before Tribunal which could only be down to our evidence and how it was presented) ABA school.

which LA are you? we had better results with Surrey than with Kent (we moved out of Kent due to LA making life so difficult)

We used Fiona Slomovic (google Advocacy and Mediation Partnership) and found her to be excellent. Thanks to her my 4yr old ds1 was sent straight to the £50k pa ABA school we wanted (without tribunal), and she has helped several people I know achieve the impossible!

She is an advocate rather than a solicitor, but I would argue that she has no less knowledge or ability for that. She also costs about a tenth of what it would cost to hire a solicitor

Thanks. We're Surrey and it feels like we might be one of the first families to experince the new 'refuse everything' policy that we've heard is in operation. From their perspective every week they stonewall is another week of residential fees saved. We do have an advocate but she's said that we will need a solicitor if we start moving towards tribunal.

I'll look into Fiona Slomovic. Thanks

I liked Chris Barnett at Levenes. Thorough and reliable.

I thought I didn't need a lawyer and tried to mediate my way out of problems but ended up trying to instruct someone last minute. I instructed a different, leading national firm but I was not impressed. The lawyer just took too long to respond, she let things drift and I wish I had stuck with Levenes.

I think FS is very good but it is worth taking legal advice on tricky issues too.

We are about to go down this road - can anyone tell me the costs involved? I have no idea of the process or the costs - but we do at least have the support of the independant school that is right for our son - it's just that we have to go to Tribunal to get there, and I know it will be hell.
We will find the funds from somewhere - even put it on the mortgage if it gets our son to the right school.

Sorry to hijack, but I have the same question as mycarscallednev. Currently trying to work out what costs are involved in going to tribunal. (In our case it would be for refusal to statement after SA. I don't know if it will be necessary yet, LA deadline is next Monday, but want to be prepared as I don't have a good feeling about it.)

Where can I find out how much it would cost? I guess there are costs involved in lodging the appeal iteself, legal fees for preparation of paperwork etc further costs if we want/need representation - and also, if we lose, would/could we be instructed to pay the LA's costs? If so, how much are we potentially looking at there?

Just posted on the Q+A for the Government minister - vented more like - it's due to their bloody incompetence that we have got to this point, and to ensure we get the right education [a basic human right, after all], we have to go through this................ still we have SEN children which makes us the lowest of the low to begin with..................

and oddly when our SEN children were born an open cheque book didn't follow the placenta.....

Sorry having a bad one today and it's all spilling out here.............

If you ring the legal firm you'd like to instruct, they will give you some guidance about fees and many will give you an initial free half hour to discuss your case.

Have a look at the websites of a few places to see if they offer this.

You can do some of this yourself too.

I think it can cost around 8k all in (expert's fees etc) but it depends on the complexity of your case, what you are going to Tribunal for (e.g. SA or statement) and the intransigence of your LA.

the costs issue is a tricky one - it obviously all depends on:

how complex the case
whether the LA are going to listen to the (legal) voice of reason, or push it all the way through to tribunal, and then beyond
who you take on to represent you.

and advocate is vastly cheaper than a solicitor. FS has been mentioned here, and I have heard good things about her. I know of another one too - can't recall the name now but could look it up - who managed a friend's case incredibly well, and comes highly recommended.

We used Ormerods initially, and I was not massively impressed, tbh. Levenes (Chris Barnett, as mentioned upthread) were recommended to us by: the school we wanted dd1 to go to, our ABA consultant, and our indepedent Ed Psych - we went with them as wanted a 'team' who had worked together before on a simialr case to ours.

Levenes charged £220 +VAT per hour of work on the case. Our LA settled before Tribunal, and so we were spared the couple of full days work and attendance that woudl entail, and costs were:

time sepnt ont he phone chasing case officers
time spent sending (mostly routine, once our case had been discussed and agreed upon) letters
etc.

it cost us a few thousand (sorry not to be more precise, it was a couple of years ago and I try not to remember in too much detail as it was obviously a very stressful time) but not as much as we had anticiapted, thanks to early settlement, which in turn I firmly believe was down to how our case was presented (and by this I mena the whole line up of witnesses, so consultant, Ed Psych, independent OT and SALT, etc - all of which added a few more thousand onto the total. not to mention the fact we were self funding at the school we wanted, so as to prove suitability)

it is not a cheap exercise, and we were lucky to have the savings to liquidate. we have already reaped several times what it cost us, though, as we won the provision we needed for dd1 (and I do not mean reaped in purely monetary terms - the right provision has meant so many gains in development for dd1 - priceless)

Thanks AE. The sad fact is that we are unlikely to be able to do it then. £8k is waaay out of our league. My parents had offered to help, but there's no way they could afford to lend us enough either.

So, it seems my child may well end up in the position where he is not entitled to the support he need's simply because we can't afford to take on the bureaucrats who are denying him it. and

Fiona Slomovic charges a £1k flat fee for tribunal costs (all inclusive).

Or she did 18ms ago, so it might have gone up slightly, but it is incredibly good value.

Please try her (or someone similar before giving up). She is also v skeptical about the need to spend thousands on independent reports, so that was music to our ears! And proved to be correct in our case

Yes, I agree with googlyeyes. Do try FS and also do go and ask around the big firms for a free initial advice session on the phone. I think Maxwell Gillot will do that.

You know, you can get quite far initially, by using loads of law firms free 30mins advice as you progress!

it all depends on what your case is, and your LA, and what provision you are after, as well as what provision your LA can offer (bloody postcode lottery, the whole thing)

I would not have put the team together that I did if dd1 had been mainstreamable at all - it would have been overkill.

we were after a provision that no La wants to grant (ABA school), fighting against the fact that we lived on the doorstep of a 'gold-standard' LA ASD school, fighting against the fact that dd1 was at another 'gold-standard' ASD pre-school (LA funded, willingly albeit tardily) who were in opposition to what we wanted, and had all but come out and said we were delusional as to dd1's abilities. and dd1 had no challenging or disruptive behaviours, and so no school was ever going to say they could not cater to her needs.

we had to get the big names on board, as otherwise we would have been dismissed, as the LA would have given more weight to the experts already opining on dd1. and we were bloody lucky we were able to do so.

look into using an advocate - far cheaper, but incredibly effective for so many people. I know (in RL, and long before I had dd1) a family who won brilliant provision for their profoundly disabled dd by using an advocate - against an LA which had very good provision to start with.

do use the free half hours too - a lot can be gone through in that time, and everyone I have dealt with has been very helpful.

Thank you.

That sounds far more doable for us. I have just found FS's website and it looks like it would cost about £1500 max for all the paperwork and correspondence and representation in our case.

From what parent partnership have said, our LEA would usually prefer not to go to tribunal for low unit cases - which ds1 is likely to be and usually pull out, as its cheaper to issue the statement than go to tribunal. In which case, we might not need to go the whole hog.

I hate all this, being kept waiting, not knowing and not being able to plan and then all the second guessing and posturing. None of us should have to go through all this for our children to receive a decent state education ffs.

They are obviously going to leave it to the very last minute to let us know whether or not he's getting a statement, which makes me so as they must have already made the decision - all the reports have been in for over a month.

moose, the waiting, and not knowing, and trying to second guess, andnot being able ot plan and carry on with the rest of your life is the worst part.

you are halfwya there - it may not seem it, but you are. keep going, you are doing really well - you are already ahead of the families who believe the lies misinformation about not bothering to apply for statements etc.

it is a crappy treadmill, and one the LAs milk for all they can. but you are already well into the process, and it will begin to ease soon.

Sorry, will look into the free initial half hour thing as well.

Still trying so hard to think positive that perhaps we might not need to do any of this, but have a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach that has become considerably worse since chatting with the Parent Partnership bod earlier this week.

Again, sorry for the hijack GarethC, but am so grateful to everyone for all this advice, as had been sitting here fretting about it all.

I will bog off now.

Well nearly bog off - just wanted to say thanks again to silverfrog.

Its MNSN that's done that for me. I'm like Agent Mulder these days - 'trust no-one' and all that.

The PP lady seemed genuinely shocked that I knew what I was talking about and knew about tribunals etc before we had our decision. She was very keen to tell me to go to mediation first and then go for tribunal if that failed. Fair enough - but her reasons were that the LA don't like people going for tribunals as even if you end up settling before the case date, it still shows up on their negative figures. I think she was trying to say the old 'you catch more flies with honey' thing, but bearing in mind who pays her salary ......

I am fundamentally cynical and suspicious by nature these days - can't think why!

No worries for the hijack - that's what these things are for right? I'm reckinong about 10k for tribunal if we need to do and hopefully not more coz then we'll be struggling.

THe SEN manager has agreed to a meeting with us though which is i suppose a postitive as at least they're engaging. They might turn around and say 'off you go'. Well you can but hope eh?

Thank you GarethC.

Sometimes I think hope is just about all we have left and that's pretty thin on the ground some days.

Don't panic if you can't afford solicitor. We did it on our own with a bit of help from IPSEA. We also went for independent ASD school for our ds (severely autistic). If you can afford to spend the money fine but I do know someone who spent 10k and lost. The solicitor is no guarantee so be careful not to over stretch yourself. If your ds current school are supporting you and you have good professional reports then you may already have a good case.

Moosemama, there's a bit in 'Clockwise' when John Cleese says 'It's not the despair. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.'

Never has a quote been more apt for trying to get the right SEN provision.

Lol Gareth - it is indeed the perfect quote!

Excellent quote Garath!