Please help me with very sensitive legal issue...

[EXC]

Re: Please help me with very sensitive legal issue...

As stevemLS said you wouldn't usually expect copies of correspondence in the breakdown of the bill but in my experience solicitors would always copy you in on any outgoing and incoming correspondence at the time.

The cost ledger does list the chargeable correspondence although the bulk of the bill is for the drafting and re-drafting of the claim.

According to the CCL the initial £900 payment on account is for the estimate cost of the time incurred in preparing the pre-action letter and the estimate for bringing the criminal claim in the e-mail you posted is in line with what you were billed.

[stevemLS]

Re: Please help me with very sensitive legal issue...

The SRA requirements on how a solicitor deals with clients are here http://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/han...2/content.page

From what you say, I have no doubt you could identify many breaches.

[Jass]

Re: Please help me with very sensitive legal issue...

As stevemLS said you wouldn't usually expect copies of correspondence in the breakdown of the bill but in my experience solicitors would always copy you in on any outgoing and incoming correspondence at the time.

The cost ledger does list the chargeable correspondence although the bulk of the bill is for the drafting and re-drafting of the claim.

According to the CCL the initial £900 payment on account is for the estimate cost of the time incurred in preparing the pre-action letter and the estimate for bringing the criminal claim in the e-mail you posted is in line with what you were billed.

Would I be within my rights to request copies of the letters and docs from the solicitor? If so, is that chargeable service?

Would you care to elaborate on "although the bulk of the bill is for the drafting and re-drafting of the claim" ? Would you call the charges for "the drafting and re-drafting" reasonable? How many times would one do the draft and re-draft? It seems awfully lot of it on the Time Ledger...

[EXC]

Re: Please help me with very sensitive legal issue...

I doubt they could charge much if anything for supplying copies of correspondence, It doesn't take a £350 per hour lawyer to operate a photocopier.

It's impossible for me to say if the costs of drafting the claim were reasonable but issuing a fairly complex claim in a foreign country wouldn't be peanuts and they did appear do it in line with the estimate.

[Jass]

Re: Please help me with very sensitive legal issue...

The SRA requirements on how a solicitor deals with clients are here http://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/han...2/content.page

From what you say, I have no doubt you could identify many breaches.

Thanks for the link, I already had a look through it and, yes, I can identify many breaches... unfortunately ...

[Jass]

Re: Please help me with very sensitive legal issue...

I doubt they could charge much if anything for supplying copies of correspondence, It doesn't take a £350 per hour lawyer to operate a photocopier.

It's impossible for me to say if the costs of drafting the claim were reasonable but issuing a fairly complex claim in a foreign country wouldn't be peanuts and they did appear do it in line with the estimate.

OK, I feel more confident to ask for the copies of correspondence now...

I would like to mention that the solicitors firm is Spanish with an office in London and few offices across Spain as well as in the same location as the academy in question... Originally, I was reassured by the solicitor that because of that, their fee will be lower...

The cost of their service was never a problem but I am sure many people would agree that after paying in access of £4500 one should not feel like it was a letdown...

[EXC]

Re: Please help me with very sensitive legal issue...

Hi Jass

Can you give me the dates that you made each payment to the solicitor?

[Jass]

Re: Please help me with very sensitive legal issue...

Hi Jass

Can you give me the dates that you made each payment to the solicitor?

Here are the dates of my payments:

26th November 2013 - £900
27th January 2014 - £618
29th May 2014 - £3500

[EXC]

Re: Please help me with very sensitive legal issue...

Thanks.

From a charging perspective I can't see there's much you can do as they provided you with an accurate estimate for which you presumably agreed, they carried out the work and you paid.

There may be issues as to the level of service, communication etc but you'd need to identify what they were.

[Jass]

Re: Please help me with very sensitive legal issue...

Thanks.

From a charging perspective I can't see there's much you can do as they provided you with an accurate estimate for which you presumably agreed, they carried out the work and you paid.

There may be issues as to the level of service, communication etc but you'd need to identify what they were.

Thank you very much for looking into it!

Please let me pick your brains on another couple of things..

I am upset that his advice to go for criminal proceedings never reached the court. I would of assume that solicitors advice should be sound and very close to the actually outcome. So if the court didn't think there is a case would I be right in thinking that the solicitor advice to go for criminal proceedings wasn't right? We have never been told that our case may never reach the court and it may be turned down! Should the solicitor point something like that out or would that be too optimistic to expect form any solicitor?

The second thing I would like to ask.... for the argument purpose: If our case was accepted and we went to the court, our solicitor would of have to do lot more work... Which I assume he had accounted for and it was already part of his fee of £3500. But we didnt go to court and he didn't have to do any more work, so how can the fee be the same?

[EXC]

Re: Please help me with very sensitive legal issue...

On your first point, in any proceedings there's always going to be winners and losers. 50% of claimants and/or defendants would have been told by their solicitors that they have a prospect of success when in fact they didn't. If solicitors were liable for unsuccessful claims there wouldn't be any.

On your second point, it's a good question but I don't know how the process works. But if you're unhappy there is no reason why you can't complain. At least then they'll be under an obligation to address your concerns.

[Jass]

Re: Please help me with very sensitive legal issue...

On your first point, in any proceedings there's always going to be winners and losers. 50% of claimants and/or defendants would have been told by their solicitors that they have a prospect of success when in fact they didn't. If solicitors were liable for unsuccessful claims there wouldn't be any.

On your second point, it's a good question but I don't know how the process works. But if you're unhappy there is no reason why you can't complain. At least then they'll be under an obligation to address your concerns.

Thank you very much for helping out and clarifying quite a few things for me!