Cost of going to first tier tribunal

[jinglymum]

As the title says really, how much was a solicitor to go to the first tier tribunal for sen. Thanks

How long is a piece of string?

TBH, the expense is usually in the independent witnesses more than anything else.

You are likely to need an independent Ed Psych at the very least and then a professional for each of the other provisions your child needs.

Legal services can be volunteers, advocates or solicitors and depending on your income some aspects can be covered by legal aid.

Ok thank you, we won't qualify for legal aid, but was quoted 8.500 as a standard price, was shocked at just quite how expensive it was. And that is before all witnesses taking into consideration.

You don't always need a solicitor. What are you appealing?

We are appealing the named school, we believe he is best placed in specialist provision, la says main stream. We have a letter from local mainstream which they wanted to place him in saying it's not suitable for him to attend. Problem is he is adopted and local specialist provision has a bio sib in, which we are happy with them mixing la isn't, so we looked out of county but our la isn't agreeing to fund. Complicated

Seems simple to me you have a letter from the mainstream saying its not suitable - they won't send to local special and won't fund a indie. Sounds like their hands are tied and I can't see a tribunal not ordering them to fund the indie.

www.mkparents.org/gDocs/08.03.13%20%20SENDIST%20Preparation%20-%20D.%20Hay.pdf

Found this advice the other day - it may help you?

A few years ago think someone mass mailed all the mainstream and special schools in and out of county and no one would accept their child as they couldn't meet their SEN needs. Then their LEA agreed to fund the indie place. I think along those lines anyway - maybe worth a shot?

Also write to your MP and ask him to write a letter saying the indie school is a good use of public funds??

Thank you so much for replies, will have a look at that link.

It's not an independent school out of county, it's another specialist provision just under another local la, they are assessing our application and we will hear back within 5 weeks, but our la has already said no to funding, so even if they accept we still have to go to tribunal. It is just so stressful, I can never get through to IPSec, our parent partnership officer is just terrible.

Right I'm going to call other local schools, take his statement and letter from other school, and hopefully get a similar response from them.

It feels personal with the senco at the council, we called her a liar, as she said she had confirmation local school was happy to take him, we asked for proof, she then said it was verbal communication, when we spoke to the school ourselves it was then they wrote to us confirming he was not suitable and it would be 'setting him up to fail' sending him there. So our relationship has completely broke down with la.

You might want to look at an advocate (cheaper than a lawyer). What kind of disability is it? Sometimes specific charities can give advice. we used an advocate and spent about £3000 on reports and representation / experts at tribunal but we did all the paperwork ourselves (just got advocate to look it over)

i saw this new charity which is offering free legal advice here

He doesn't have a diagnosis as such. He is generally behind in many aspects, educationally, socially, doesn't interact with peers, emotionally. Older bio sib has similar issues I think, although I'm not award of his exact problems.

Are you in the North or the South of the country so someone can reccomend a EP for you as that would probably be more useful?

Contact a family have a newish educational helpline if you can't get through to IPSEA or any of the others they could be worth a call as well.

I got legal aid for a solicitor to advise in the run up to the hearing, but to be fair the parents on this forum gave the same info lol! At the time I was an emotional wreck as they pulled some pretty nasty stunts in the run up to Tribunal, not all councils use intimidation as a tactic.

Legal aid doesn't cover you for representation at the hearing anyways, either from the legal profession or professional witnesses.

What makes a MASSIVE difference is the quality of your evidence. As well as going thru every scrap of paper/email etc you've ever had invest in the best EP report you can obtain. I think the going rate is approx £800-1000. If you have any fighting funds left over go for at least one additional expert report in an area where your child has a key need (e.g I went for a SALT as my lad has autistic traits).

Having gone thru the process I personally wouldn't risk a Tribunal without a very good EP report - I think this is your critical expenditure.

Be sneaky enough to use a quote or two from the LEA reports etc against them if you possibly can.

If your cause is just, your evidence good, & you are calm and well prepared with your arguments on the day, then you can win tribunal without remortgaging the house.

We got quotes from a range of solicitors and 8.5k sounds in the right ball park (bit more or less depending on whether it includes VAT/disbursements, representation etc.). I agree that your case doesn't sound too complex so you might not need it, our case was for independent residential and had some legal complications so they sent in a barrister against us.

Agree that evidence (esp. EP) is more important than legal advice.

You can do a lot of the legwork yourselves as others have said - we also sought evidence that all the local schools weren't suitable for DS. It's important to get any responses in writing rather than verbally.

The data protection act was also really useful - you'll probably find meeting minutes and emails about your situation and responses from schools that you weren't aware of, all of that can be used in evidence.

Have you lodged your appeal already? It's often advised to appeal against pts 2, 3 and 4 rather than just a part 4 appeal. The idea is that the needs and provision (in parts 2&3) should lead directly to the most suitable placement in part 4, so the key to getting the placement is to get the needs and provision as specific as you can. But it is a bit complicated in your case, as the local specialist provision doesn't seem unsuitable for his SEN, but rather for non-SEN reasons.