I have been upsetting some of my divorce lawyer competitors this week (15/02/2024) by giving an interview to Legal Futures (click on the link below).
I have been upsetting some of my divorce lawyer competitors this week (15/02/2024) by giving an interview to Legal Futures (click on the link below). I criticised the divorce law profession generally for being much too expensive with a lack of transparency when it comes to their charging rates. I should know since I have personal experience of this. On 11/01/2023 I attended an initial meeting with a Partner, in a leading family law firm in Manchester, and her assistant. Cost £804. I was asked to pay £5,000 on account, which I did since they would not do any work at all without that payment. This is the thing. At no time was I informed what the charging rates were for the Partner and assistant. There is nothing at all on the particular law firm’s website about charging rates. I realise I should have asked but I was in the midst of a terrible divorce and emotionally I was all over the place. I was vulnerable, I admit it and I am, of course, a solicitor. For work the law firm carried out between 11/01/2023 to 15/02/2023 I was charged £6,387. No breakdown of the work was provided. The bill was totally absent of any detail whatsoever. In addition, I was asked to pay a further £6,000 on account. So, over a period of 5 weeks I had paid £7,191 in fees plus a further £6,000 on account making a total of £13,191. I immediately sacked the law firm.
You can see why divorce lawyers have such a bad reputation in this country. The system needs reforming. There is currently a Law Commission looking into the law relating to divorce and financial resolution following divorce plus other matters. The Law Commission should look in detail at the cost of divorce in this country. Plus, we desperately need a system which allows one party, say H, to make an offer to settle and should the other party, say W, fail to do better at a later date or a trial, then the W do pay H’s legal costs from the the date the offer was made(or 3 weeks after the offer was made to allow W time to properly consider the offer). In this way you will be able to stop the juggernaut in it’s tracks.
