Do some work yourself and save legal costs

lolly,

sounds like a nightmare .. he will still have to pay his fees - even if you have nothing.

You could write to the legal services commission I suppose .. they are the ones who decide if he can have funding. If they see your form E's etc then they will realise he is chasing a lost cause. Or maybe if you do have that first appointment, the judge will see it? They have to sign off the legal aid bills from the solicitor .. there must be a way to get the judge to refuse to sign because it is clearly a waste of public funds.

Maybe someone else here can advise better what you shd do?

Hadenoughnow

Lolly,

You're right, of course.

If I take my car in to the garage for repair, and they make a porage of it, they have to put it right - at their own expense. So it's hard to see why solicitors should not do the same.

Perhaps this is unfair. There may, indeed, be solicitors who will rectify their mistakes at their own expense. I'm fairly sure I would. But then perhaps honest lawyers are in need of protection under the Endangered Species Act.

We might as well have a laugh - which is the odd one out ?
A refuse collector, a unicorn, an honest lawyer and a flying horse ? Answer : a refuse collector. The others are mythical creatures.

Seriously, however, the fact that your hubby is on legal aid has two consequences. Any file is subject to audit by the legal aid people, so if they've charged you too much, they can just knock it off the bill. Secondly, legal aid is only a loan so he might well have to repay it. Thirdly,
the solicitor is, in theory, under a duty to report the facts to the Legal Aid people if the client is being unreasonable.

I wish I knew whether it is open to the litigant faced by a legally aided opponent to complain that the other side is
dragging things out. It's just part of a general gripe that there seems very little in the way of sanctions against those who behave unreasonably. The rules are there and the whole picture would change overnight if judges started actually enforcing them.

Mike

Sera,

It seems to me the judge in your case was trying to be helpful, but I call to mind an example from another area of law in which I used to have quite extensive experience - employment.

There was one chairman of an Industrial Tribunal who, in the nature of the case, often had to deal with applicants with no representation. He was one of those people who had the knack of cutting out the flummery, getting to the root of the problem, forming a view about it, and made it very obvious what it was, even before the verdict. If the applicant was not represented he took it upon himself to cross examine the employer's witnesses, and usually did a damn good job of it.

The job of a judge must surely to be to achieve justice and a fair result within the limitations of the law. The impecunious litigant might have a very good case. (S)he
should not be without a remedy because of lack of money and as I see it, it is the duty of the judge to make
sure (s)he gets a fair hearing and a just verdict. It is
clear to me that many judges do exactly this.

I have been kicking around in my mind some sort of system similar to that which is, or used to be, used in civil litigation, which basically involved someone examining the case when the pleadings had been completed and it was clear what the issues were and how complicated the case was likely to be. The simpler cases were assigned to the County Court, which was much cheaper and the High Court
reserved for the high value or high complexity issues.
In most ancillary relief cases, as long as the decision maker has the facts, a relatively simple no-frills arbitration - similar to a small claims Court -might suffice.

Mike

Sera - your approach sounds ideal - self rep with a safety net -
"I have used a sol for the actual Divorce; and sparingly used her time on an ad-hoc 'advisory' level to get me through the Form bits."
could you tell us how you managed it? How did you explain it to your solicitor?
After your solicitor did your divorce petition - how did you organise things after that?
All the court forms etc came to you direct? - you negotiated court dates etc?
Are you doing the "court bundle " - the docs for court?

Hi Mike

I totally agree with all that you say and would love to see it implimented...

The problem boils down to people really... and how do you change peoples attitudes?

Our case...Three hearings, all ordering my partners ex to file a "proper form E" even with penal notices attached! It took three separate hearings for this to eventually be done. the Judge agreed with my husband that his ex wife's form E, had no informaton at all in it and one Judge was not amused at a clear lie in one. ( a very BIG lie, that the Judge caught her out with at one hearing)

Then the FDR, at no time had that Judge read anything at all on this case. (they dont really need to when they can see it is going nowhere, or has got to that stage after 3 years) If we had took the advice of that Judge at the FDR who stated "if I were the Judge at the FH then I would be giving your ex wife 80% of your pension and around 60k lump sum. Then my husband would of been giving away most of everything he had ever worked for.

All that FDR did was prolong a case and made his ex wife's costs run out of control.
They would not budge from what the Judge said at that hearing. His ex wife had it in her head that she was going to get 60k for a cost of 30k,(and to be fair so did her barrister and Lawyers) so she would be 30k up on the deal. Plus she would be getting 80% of his pension. A nice gamble if it had of paid off for her.

Well FH and she lost big time, but then you know that.

I truely believe and I have said it for a long time (hearing other folks tales, downbutnotout for one) that the only time anyone seems to read anything or look into a case in any depth is the FH.

I really dont know what the answer is except educate people that if they tell the whole truth, hide nothing at all and be up front totally with all assets and debts then the costs wont spiral. If they, at any stage get caught out lying then the costs up to that date will have to be paid for by the party who lies. In other words large penalties, and making penal notices that actually mean something.

I found it incredulous that my partners ex had 3 penal notices served on her and it made no difference what so ever. If we wanted any of the penal notices acted on then we had to pay £80 for a form, that our family court did not hold and we had to send off for it??

I believed that say a Judge made an order with a penal notice attached on say the Friday and it had to be implimented within 7 days, then I honestly thought (how daft was I?) that a Judge would have a look 7 days later to see if the order they had made had been adhered to. If not then I thought the Judge would issue a summons to have that person brought before the court and asked why they hadnt done it.

It seems madness to me if noone cares or just poo poos any order made? It just prolongs everything for that much longer and thats where the costs start spiralling.

OOps I have gone on and on again! lol
Will give someone else a turn.

Louise x

mike100468 wrote:

Sera,It seems to me the judge in your case was trying to be helpful,
Mike

Thanks guys for all your imput. Mike: I totally appreciate the judges helpfulness; he did indeed ask me if I would find it helpful; and I thanked him enormously.
But the problem is that my ex's solicitors simply REFUSE to accept my massive contributions; and keep implying that my claim has "ne legal merit". Therefore; in 'borrowing' the £10k from our pot (via my husbands bank account) I see this as a waste of (our) money if indeed they turn up for a round-table meeting; refuse to accept anything I say (or my expensive barrister will argue on my behalf) and we'll be back to Court anywayz; and heading for a trial that I can't afford to be legally represented at.

What's weird in all of this; is that I accepted LESS than my husbands first offer.

My husband and I mediated a settlement one YEAR ago (end July 2007) Based on the profits I'd made on renovating the house, selling houses and Land to developers; supporting his buisnesses (in Partnership) over two years; (wereby I received £4,000 only) scrimped and saved a further £45,000 etc; etc; etc;.

I'd given up my £35,000 a year job; to assist him and pursue the renovation project and work with his businesses interests.

He asked how a judge would work. I said that despite Short Term marriage; he would look at my contribution, look at my losses of income, look at my expectatation (to have enjoyed the fruits of our labour: ie: OUR profits) and decide that a Lump Sum Order would be paid to me.

Having done the sums: (amicably and politely over coffee around our living room coffee table)He offered me £100,000 (a year ago)

I said it was probably less than I'd be entitiled to (in our unique circumstances)Astonsihingly; hubby-dearest says "but you're worth so much more than that"... and promptly offered £150,000 (I told him to see a solcitor to draw up a Consent Order).

Next day; he returns from sols stating "You'll get nothing, it's short-term marriage, get out of MY house" etc, etc.

Six months later, no Offer. My sol asked if he'd made an offer; I said I'd take the LOWER offer of £100,000 if it meant I didn't have to go to court. He refused.

He eventually offered £25,000 equal to a 2% agency commission fee (on bringing in an offer on the house at £1.2m) I reminded him that an agent doesn't go into your house; spend two years and thousands of pounds of their own money in decorating it in order to get a commission fee.

His offer after one year stands at £30k and a further re-imbursement of £10,000 for photographic fees; which he expects invoiced. I contributed £26,000 in photography; and I don't see why I should lose out on income tax on a Divorce settlement lump sum.

Then ther's the £19,000 on just one of my Cards which was used for the house; the support of Business etc; etc;....

I KNOW I have a good Case. (Two soliciotrs have said I should expect £100,000 - £250,000) Last week I've offered to walk away from all of this mess for £50,0000 Which would re-imburse only my late-mothers Inheritence and restore my financial status prior to marriage.
That would NOT re-imburse loss of income, or anything else I was promised.

WE made a lot of money in two years. He sits on all that money; thousands in the Bank; new Audi, lending his mates loads of money; pushing the profits into his parents accounts. Lying on Form E.... the list goes on.... and I'm left jobless.

maggie wrote:

Sera - your approach sounds ideal - self rep with a safety net -

could you tell us how you managed it?

Maggie;
You may have just read my post above: so Rant Numero Deux for a reply to your question:

I only instructed a solicitor for the actual Divorce. Once the AR bit looked like it was becoming protracted; I made it quite clear to her that I couldn't afford representation.

I asked if I could use her in an 'advisory' capacity.(I knew this was cheeky; and I told her so. I also said I feel like she's a consultant). Her company works honestly with Resolution away from Court. She wrote to ex's sols saying she was representing me only with the Divorce; and advised they write directly to me with AR matters.

However; the Court automatically adds her details to AR proceedings; and the Court started forwarding Notices and Forms to my sol.
I had to then stop using my sol in all matters; just because the Court wouldn't deal with me directly whilst her name appeared on our File.

If you can't get Legal Aid; (asset rich - cash poor) then you simply can't pay. Maybe she just agreed to help hoping I'd get stuck.

You can but ask!