trainee solictor- should I be concerned

peppapig14

I had offer accepted on a property 5/2, and instructed solicitor 18/2.
morygage offer recieved 20/2.
rang solictor yesterday for an update, and she advised she had recieved the contract pack , revised her enquires and is waiting for her supervisor to sign them off before she can send the enquires out to the vendors solicitors
I wasn't aware she was a trainee, and understand everyone has to start somewhere.
should I he concerned that as she is a trainee the timeframe can be made longer as she will need her work checked? or should I be thinking "her supervisor will be ensuring she is doing things in a timely manner?

thearchitect

No, a qualified solicitor will be required to check and sign-off the work.  This is quite normal.  Just make sure you are billed at her lower rate.....

davidmcn

thearchitect said:

No, a qualified solicitor will be required to check and sign-off the work.  This is quite normal.  Just make sure you are billed at her lower rate.....

It's almost certainly a fixed rate irrespective of who's doing the work.
And no, it's not likely to make any difference to the timescale (if anything, more senior staff are more likely to have other distractions from doing your work).

vw100

Quite common like in other industries, trainee's do the work and the work is checked and signed off by qualified/experienced staff.

AdrianC

I'd rather have a trainee under supervision than somebody a few months post-qual doing it on their own.

[Deleted User]

She’ll be reading every single word so she doesnt make a mistake and her supervisor will be checking very closely 

steampowered

These days most residential conveyancing work is done by conveyancers. Not by solicitors. 

It is normal for conveyancing to be done by a large team of paralegals overseen by a senior coneyancer or solicitor. 

In fact, the trainee solicitor could be more qualified than the paralegal/conveyancer you would normally deal with. In the conveyancing sector it is very rare for people to go straight from law school into a trainee solicitor job. It takes people several years to get a training contract. The "trainee solicitor" might have spent several years being a paralegal or a licensed conveyancer.

shinytop

We had a fully qualified, experienced conveyancer for our sale, with a trainee to assist. He (the qualified one) turned out to be a bit of a t*t and left the company without warning, leaving us somewhat in the lurch.  When they eventually got access to all the documentation he was working on, the trainee took over and was absolutely brilliant. 

Falafels

My solicitor's a trainee. He's quite open about not having had experience of certain aspects of my current - admittedly unusual - transactions, and seeks advice from a senior partner when he's not sure. In other news, he's far more responsive to messages and queries than any other solicitor I've ever come across. If anything, he's a lot more careful than the experienced solicitors I've had in the past.

I wouldn't be worried if I were you.

coachman12

This thread seems to be coming to an end as we are all agreeing -----and I am no exception. Over the years, I have used the family solicitor, a partner in a big company, and I have used conveyancers employed by solicitors ------ I particularly agree with Adrian and would much rather have a trainee working on my case than a frenetic solicitor who has too many cases to give much time to a simple conveyancing case and who has no incentive to impress anyone. 

Thrugelmir

Would you prefer a team of people dealing with the various aspects of your transaction. Or rely on the availability of a single individual to undertake every single minute detail. If time is of the essence then I know the option I'd prefer to maintain forward movement.