Complaining about an Employment Lawyer

RuthnJasper

Vincent.waldorf wrote: »

He also sent me an email with £00 fees, a typo and I called him to say did he mean to put no fee and said that "you know that is incorrect. It's obviously a typo. His work was full of typos!

Pot and kettle...


If he had been acting for you, and succeeded in getting you at least some kind of settlement, however unsatisfactory it was to you, then to make a decision and communicate it direct to the other party without even informing him isn't really fair. Plus it makes him look foolish. I think he was probably right to be angry, though not to have expressed it as he did, perhaps.


Surely a small settlement is better than no settlement at all?

Vincent.waldorf

RuthnJasper wrote: »

Pot and kettle...


If he had been acting for you, and succeeded in getting you at least some kind of settlement, however unsatisfactory it was to you, then to make a decision and communicate it direct to the other party without even informing him isn't really fair. Plus it makes him look foolish. I think he was probably right to be angry, though not to have expressed it as he did, perhaps.


Surely a small settlement is better than no settlement at all?

Actually he did nothing, he didnt suggest I ask for more money or better terms, he thought it was going to be an easy hourly fee. He was actually useless and didnt explain any of my options as what they offered wasnt better than just resigning. I was keen to cap the fees so I didnt want him to do more than write an email which i instructed him to. He was incompetent and didnt negotiate anything, he was an expensive monkey who I asked to write the email and thats all i wanted from him..

steampowered wrote: »

Is it really worth pursuing this, given that you only saw him for a single 1 hour introductory meeting and decided not to instruct him further?

Sounds like a waste of time to me but each to their own.

The fees are still significant to me, he offered no value as a lawyer and everything I did was based on my research. He thought it was goign to be a simple reading of the contract.

The settlement was just my notice salary. it wasnt really a settlement at all, the firm wanted me to sign away my legal rights for free.

Undervalued

vincent.waldorf wrote: »

Actually he did nothing, he didnt suggest I ask for more money or better terms, he thought it was going to be an easy hourly fee. He was actually useless and didnt explain any of my options as what they offered wasnt better than just resigning. I was keen to cap the fees so I didnt want him to do more than write an email which i instructed him to. He was incompetent and didnt negotiate anything, he was an expensive monkey who I asked to write the email and thats all i wanted from him..


The fees are still significant to me, he offered no value as a lawyer and everything I did was based on my research. He thought it was goign to be a simple reading of the contract.

The settlement was just my notice salary. it wasnt really a settlement at all, the firm wanted me to sign away my legal rights for free.

Given that the "settlement" was just your notice then it may well be there was no realistic legal basis on which to expect more.

It is normal with a settlement agreement, although not obligatory, for the employer to pay a sum of money towards the employee's legal costs. Generally this is the bare minimum for the solicitor to advise the employee of their rights and will seldom if ever pay for the solicitor to negotiate on the employee's behalf. If you want the solicitor to do that then it is at your own expense.

The problem that sometime arrises if there is ultimately no settlement agreement signed. You need to be clear whether the employer's offer to pay a legal fee of £XXX still stands if this happens. It seems you weren't clear about this?

Obviously we can't judge whether the solicitor was rude / unhelpful / unprofessional or not. It may be that his advice was, as I said above, that you had no case for anything beyond the statutory minimum. If so then it makes no sense to sign a settlement agreement unless it was going to, at the least, guarantee a satisfactory reference. However, even to form this opinion he will have had to spend some time meeting you and looking at the details. Why should he not be paid for that?

steampowered

vincent.waldorf wrote: »

Actually he did nothing, he didnt suggest I ask for more money or better terms, he thought it was going to be an easy hourly fee. He was actually useless and didnt explain any of my options as what they offered wasnt better than just resigning. I was keen to cap the fees so I didnt want him to do more than write an email which i instructed him to. He was incompetent and didnt negotiate anything, he was an expensive monkey who I asked to write the email and thats all i wanted from him..

I don't understand.

On the one hand you told him not to do anything, because you didn't want to pay his fees.

On the other hand, you are upset he didn't do more.

I'm not sure a solicitor will agree to "just" write an email. Once a legal representative is involved, correspondence goes through them rather than through you directly. The employer would have responded to his email and expected to receive any further correspondence from your solicitor.

Undervalued

steampowered wrote: »

I don't understand.

On the one hand you told him not to do anything, because you didn't want to pay his fees.

On the other hand, you are upset he didn't do more.

I'm not sure a solicitor will agree to "just" write an email. Once a legal representative is involved, correspondence goes through them rather than through you directly. The employer would have responded to his email and expected to receive any further correspondence from your solicitor.

Exactly.

It seems to me the solicitor "disappointed" the OP by telling him that there was no realistic prospect of getting more than the bare contractual entitlement.

Because of that there was no point in signing a settlement agreement.

Without an agreement the employer would not pay for the legal advice leaving the OP having to pay for the solicitor's time.

Whether or not the solicitor was "rude", "useless" or an "expensive monkey" we will never know but I would put money on this being a case of wanting to shoot the messenger because the OP doesn't like the message.

jobbingmusician

Was this actually a settlement agreement proposed by the employer, or did the OP just go to the lawyer to ask him to propose a SA to them? I cannot believe that an employer would propose a SA of just the contractual entitlement (and am surprised that there has been no mention of a reference).

The time to negotiate better terms with an employer is surely BEFORE you go to see a solicitor. The solicitor is simply there to ensure you understand the SA and to sign to say that s/he has done so. (Although I did have one who explored thoroughly with me the possibility that I might have been the victim of disability discrimination, even though I felt that I had not. A truly conscientious and excellent chap, who did far more than an hour's work for the pittance provided by my employer!)

Vincent.waldorf

The lawyer has offered me a 10pc discount to the fees he didn't deserve. I want to make a complaint as her rudeness really annoyed me and I've probably not spent much time writing my OP

Would I be able to get the fees cancelled on the basis he didn't treat me like a client and was very insensitive and rude? He did little than read the settlement agreement back to me ...

NeilCr

How to complain about a solicitor

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/legal-system/taking-legal-action/complaints-about-legal-advisers/

TBagpuss

vincent.waldorf wrote: »

The lawyer has offered me a 10pc discount to the fees he didn't deserve. I want to make a complaint as her rudeness really annoyed me and I've probably not spent much time writing my OP

Would I be able to get the fees cancelled on the basis he didn't treat me like a client and was very insensitive and rude? He did little than read the settlement agreement back to me ...

insentitivity and rudeness can be very subjective. *If* the firm were to accept that he had been rude or unprofessional then yes, they might decide to waive the fee. But at present it is just your perception that that is how he acted. His recod of the meeeting and his dscription of what happened may be very different

You spent the time with him - why do you not think he hould be paid for advising you? .
Part of your complaint was that he spoke to you about the costs; that is something which he is obliged to do. One of the biggest sources of complaints against solicitors is lack of proper information about costs,so making sure that you are given that information at an early stage is important and so I don't think that complaining that he did this would be sen a sa valid complaint.

Part of your complaint was that he explained to you that having negotiated and agreed something separately with your employer created issues.

Those things don't sound like him not treating you as a client, they sound like you not being clear about his role.

Of course you are free to reject the the 10% offer and to request more. They are then free to turn down that request.

steampowered

vincent.waldorf wrote: »

Would I be able to get the fees cancelled on the basis he didn't treat me like a client and was very insensitive and rude? He did little than read the settlement agreement back to me ...

Unlikely.

What did you expect to achieve from a short one-off meeting, other than him telling you what the effect of the settlement agreement is?