The joke is over

hethmar

Well, its been an eye opener for us how these "professionals" work. I can tell you we had to retype all our own statements because the grammar, the errors and the spellings were embarrassing. Even some of our witnesses phoned and said they couldnt sign something so badly presented. In one letter sent to the defendants the solicitors had given our name and address as the defendants in the body and the address of the property involved was the defendants address. Incredible. In any other profession (surely) such incompetence would be a warning at the very least.

I think a lot of these solicitors are getting away with murder (and no wonder people do get away with murder with such poor quality research and work).

HelpWhereIcan

Just to add an update I have heard today that my investor has been able to speak with the corporate partner who my solicitor works under and they have come down another £500 which is about as much as we will get.

Glad for the discount as the fee leaves a slightly better taste in the mouth now but I have learned one very important lesson.

Anyone working for me or my firm now will have to do it on a fixed fee basis with any additional charges being approved or at least interim statements being issued at fixed intervals - eg when the fee doubles or goes up by £1000. Probably too 'controlling' for the likes of some firms but not unrealisticfor me (who has to issue variation agreements to be agreed by the client whenever the fee payable exceeds the initial estimate).

Just a shame it took someone with real clout (who could hit them in the pocket) to get any kind of result.

not_loaded

You’ll be very lucky to get away with setting your own terms like ‘fixed fee basis with any additional charges being approved’. On at least two occasions we have tried to move on when frustrated by solicitor inaction and incompetence. They both used ‘solicitors’ lien’ to blackmail the excessive fees out of us.

In one case the solicitor had done absolutely nothing with the paperwork he chose to withhold.

I suspect that as they spend so much of their time with toe rag offenders they lose sight of what decency and honesty really is.

chunky79

I Have worked as a legal secretary and never seen such sloppy work, the staf did do their job. I am not one now btw.....The firm i work for had the odd lazy one that would not work over 5om but then we had staff working in many departments until 7 and 8pm. If it was a big case i have known staff on occasion be in until 1pm. I think it is pot luck on who you pick.

I have only ever had to go toa solicitor once for my divorce he was fantastic..So again personal experience.

Its awful to hear people being treated the this way when they have gone to this person for help and advice which is what the are supposed to be trained to do....

In my old firm its only the Conveyancing department thats been hit hard, 5 redundancies in total.

lostinrates

HelpWhereIcan wrote: »

He is trying to charge me $5k for something that he did using cut and paste and has the skills to sound serious when he tells me it represents a generous reduction from the £8000 worth of billable hours they have logged as he wants to keep the cost as proportionate to the size of the job as possible.

I wouldn't disagree so much if the additional work was not simple things like removing a name, cutting out some paragraphs and changing a price - surely even a highly skilled lawyer can do that in minutes when using a document based almost entirely in precedent they hold.

Rant over cos I love him really and will be paying his bill this week (he's bound to be an MSEer and almost certainly a certified tinfoil hat wearing member of the economy etc forum knowing my luck)

From what DH tells me I would agree with this. He says a lot of sloppy work is resultant from copy + paste. They do of course use copy and paste at his firm, but then of course it is proof read, by a solicitor/advocate or trainee with understanding of the concepts, or often a solicitor AND a trainee, and that is man hours- well spent, but still billable hours. Grammar/spelling errors are also common in international work where transaltion is involved. Initially DH used to correct all minor errors in documents and spent much time trying to convince people not to overuse superlatives, when, for example, working with Italians in English.