Legal Protection add-on - Options

floofer

Hi,

I am currently looking into my potential options to help me with an employment dispute and have been in touch with arc legal (via my sure home policy), who have asked me to submit details and evidence related to my claim.

As part of the claim it gives me two potential representation options to choose from:

1) Use their own panel of approved solicitors.
2) Include details of your own (non-approved) solicitor.

Arc legal provide the list of benefits of using their own panel of solicitors and in my opinion seem to be pushing the customers (me) in that direction. They say that using your own solicitor, they need to agree to arc legals competitive rates and also that there needs to be a monthly check-in with arc legal which can slow the process down.

Now a quick look online at Arc legal reviews seem to indicate that they are a shambles of a company with a lot of 1 star reviews, and there are various references to their panel solicitors being very unprofessional, trainees etc. There is also a lot of mention about delays etc. Basically just an unwillingness to represent people with their claims.

I would just like to know if anyone has any opinions/advice/experience with these types of services or this particular company? Also, any opinions on which if the two options I should progress with?

I'm inclined to try and go with my own solicitor. I'm just a bit concerned I could be left holding the bag for something. I have asked arc legal for details of what that particular process would look like and they have been pretty evasive from the beginning, telling me that I need to submit my claim first (which requires me to choose one of the 2 options).

Any input would be much appreciated

DullGreyGuy

All insurers use large panel firms who have national coverage, it's much easier to manage 2-3 large solicitor firms than hundreds of small local family companies. Like any large firm there will be paralegals at the bottom of the chain up to senior partners charging over £1,000 per hour. A small family firm is likely to be a small number of solicitors, if they are lucky with a paralegal or two and legal secretaries. They generally dont operate at the top or bottom end of the rate scales. 

I haven't seen Arc's terms or rates but have seen other insurers and it'd be highly unlikely you will find anyone willing to work under those unless you have a close relationship with a law firm already and they're willing to work below their normal rates. 

The reality is that all firms are full of good and bad people. For an unrelated matter we hired a partner and two associates from a large law firm, coincidently a colleague was an ex partner of the firm and asked who we had in the team. One associate he didn't know well but said they were ok, the partner he said whatever we were paying it wasnt enough and the other associate he said that if we halved his money it would still be paying too much. Having seen the three of them in action... I totally agree on the two associates (we asked them to change the bad one), the partner was exceptionally impressive but I struggle to see £1,200 + VAT as being "not enough".

Speak to a law firm of your choice but I strongly suspect they'll say no. They may however offer other funding options depending on the nature of the issue.

floofer

DullGreyGuy said:

All insurers use large panel firms who have national coverage, it's much easier to manage 2-3 large solicitor firms than hundreds of small local family companies. Like any large firm there will be paralegals at the bottom of the chain up to senior partners charging over £1,000 per hour. A small family firm is likely to be a small number of solicitors, if they are lucky with a paralegal or two and legal secretaries. They generally dont operate at the top or bottom end of the rate scales. 

I haven't seen Arc's terms or rates but have seen other insurers and it'd be highly unlikely you will find anyone willing to work under those unless you have a close relationship with a law firm already and they're willing to work below their normal rates. 

The reality is that all firms are full of good and bad people. For an unrelated matter we hired a partner and two associates from a large law firm, coincidently a colleague was an ex partner of the firm and asked who we had in the team. One associate he didn't know well but said they were ok, the partner he said whatever we were paying it wasnt enough and the other associate he said that if we halved his money it would still be paying too much. Having seen the three of them in action... I totally agree on the two associates (we asked them to change the bad one), the partner was exceptionally impressive but I struggle to see £1,200 + VAT as being "not enough".

Speak to a law firm of your choice but I strongly suspect they'll say no. They may however offer other funding options depending on the nature of the issue.

Thank you for your reply to my post

I see. So the main issue for me using a non-approved solicitor of my own is likely to be the terms of which they are required to work under? including probably lower rates per hour?

Ideally I would like to be able to take arcs terms/requirements to a private solicitor and talk through it with them, however, the problem is they aren't willing to give me any information until I choose one of the two options when submitting the claim. Seems pretty unhelpful. 

The alternative is of course just to opt for the solicitors that they are pushing. I do have my concerns based on the reviews though. It's an employment tribunal where deadlines are critical and most of the complaints about arc legal seem to relate to how long they take to do anything.

DullGreyGuy

They should be able to give you the terms and the rate card... they may need to know where the solicitors are based as some will uplift if it's a London firm -v- Wolverhampton. 

Yes, its both rates and wider terms... the former requires them to lean on paralegals with oversight from an associate - the terms say they'll pay based on who should have dealt with matters not who did. So if your sols only have partners they'll be earning paralegal (about 1/3 to 1/4) rates for the basic file setup, letters etc. Terms are normally restrictive too requiring fairly frequent referrals to agree courses of action which have to be done at their own expense.

floofer

DullGreyGuy said:

They should be able to give you the terms and the rate card... they may need to know where the solicitors are based as some will uplift if it's a London firm -v- Wolverhampton. 

Yes, its both rates and wider terms... the former requires them to lean on paralegals with oversight from an associate - the terms say they'll pay based on who should have dealt with matters not who did. So if your sols only have partners they'll be earning paralegal (about 1/3 to 1/4) rates for the basic file setup, letters etc. Terms are normally restrictive too requiring fairly frequent referrals to agree courses of action which have to be done at their own expense.

Thank you. That helps me understand the process a lot better. It does however all sound as if it's set up just to make things quite difficult. My case has so many short deadlines as well as I think most employment disputes do. It's difficult to envisage these organisations meeting the deadlines. That being said - I still need to explore it as an option.

DullGreyGuy

floofer said:
My case has so many short deadlines as well as I think most employment disputes do. It's difficult to envisage these organisations meeting the deadlines. That being said - I still need to explore it as an option.

This is where things get a bit messy... because both insurance and solicitors are heavily regulated and neither regulator wants to but heads with the other then there is generally a clear line between the two... if Shoesmiths (as a randomly selected panel solicitor firm) were to cost your case by missing deadlines etc then your complaint would be to them and up the Legal side of the chain. If Arc declined your claim or spent too long considering it your complaint would be with them and up to the Financial Ombudsman. 

No one wants to rely on a complaints process and would prefer it just went well from the off but at least if you do go down the path and things do go wrong at least there is a proper non-court mechanism to deal with it. 

As mentioned previously though, never seen Arc's terms for solicitors and they could be different to the firms that I have been involved with so dont discredit the route based on my experience alone. I suspect they are similar but cannot say for certain.