People might wish to change their divorce solicitor for a whole host of reasons; whatever your reason is, you are quite entitled to change your solicitor should you need to do so.
Why would I change my solicitor?
Many of the reasons why someone would change their solicitor are entirely innocuous, such as moving house, or seeking someone with more specialist expertise. Sometimes the reasons for changing could be because you are unhappy with your solicitor. You may not like their approach to the case or you may find them extremely slow and unresponsive.
It may be that you would prefer to instruct someone else at the same firm. In many cases, people prefer to have a clean break entirely from their previous firm and instruct a different firm of solicitors in their place.
How can I change my divorce solicitor?
We receive lots of enquiries from people in this position who would like to use us in place of their previous representative.
Ordinarily, we recommend that they first of all meet with us or speak to us by telephone to discuss their case and ensure they are happy moving over to us. We then ask them to sign a letter of authority for us to send on to their previous solicitor. That letter will ask for their complete file so that we can get fully up to speed with the case and take things forward for the new client straightaway.
What if my old solicitor won’t release my file?
Often it does not require any communication between the client and their old solicitor and the letter mentioned above will suffice. Sometimes however, solicitors refuse to release the file to us if any invoices remain outstanding to them. Whilst that is far from ideal, we are still usually able to assemble the most important pieces of documentation, usually using a combination of the Court, the spouse’s solicitor and the client’s own records.
If you are in this situation and you would like to change solicitors we would be very happy to speak to you.