Are Solicitors losing influence with their clients

In fairness, these were probably the sort of questions that the other Solicitor asked BEFORE the deal collapsed on him.

Like it or not, Landlords are no longer in a strong position when it comes to
letting a property. They once were but they are no longer. Tenants are cock of the walk and they know it. They are not going to put themselves out.They dont have to. They will just go next door.

If I was that landlord, I would need to know that I have a Solicitor on board that will help me get the deal across the line. Maybe instead of looking for five references, he might have settled for a bank reference and the phone number of the previous landlord. A solicitor that digs his or her heels in, in pursuit of perfection, but loses the deal, is in my oppinion "brilliant" but worthless.
 
Dr.Debt said:
Maybe instead of looking for five references, he might have settled for a bank reference and the phone number of the previous landlord. A solicitor that digs his or her heels in, in pursuit of perfection, but loses the deal, is in my oppinion "brilliant" but worthless.
Click to expand...

You seem to know the fine details of the case. The more you post, the more you divulge.
 
Dr.Debt said:
. Maybe instead of looking for five references, he might have settled for a bank reference and the phone number of the previous landlord. A solicitor that digs his or her heels in, in pursuit of perfection, but loses the deal, is in my oppinion "brilliant" but worthless.
Click to expand...

But surely it's the landlord that requested 5 references and that would be nigh on impossible from anybody. The landlord should have realised that the tenant would walk if he put unreasonable demands on the tenant in today's market.

What exactly was the tenant asked for? If it took two years to get this tenant there and there 15 other lots vacant than one have to be exceedingly flexible as in little or no conditions and a rent lower than all others
 
Bronte, It wasnt the landlord who requested all the references. It was the landlord's Solicitor....and otherwise I agree fully with your post
 
Dr.Debt said:
Bronte, It wasnt the landlord who requested all the references. It was the landlord's Solicitor....and otherwise I agree fully with your post
Click to expand...

But the landlord if he knew 5 references would make the tenant walk should have instructed his solicitor to ask for no references. There may be certain basics one needs for a commercial tenancy but 5 references are not necessary.

And I don't get whether you think the solicitor was acting properly or not. Seems to me he was acting on his clients instructions. I await the full details. Because quite clearly you used this story as an example of a landlord losing a client because of his solicitor.
 
That's not a reply, and you started this thread so I think you should back up your original post.
 
That's the central issue in the example given- solicitors give advice, clients must make the commercial decision.
 
Bronte, I think most of your questions are answered earlier up in the thread if you go back through it.

The landlord is an elderly man who wouldnt be at all familiar with legal matters.Hhe found a tenant for his premises and briefed his Solicitor to take care of drafting the lease and getting it sorted out. To my understanding that was the extent of the brief.

Regarding your comment - "And I don't get whether you think the solicitor was acting properly or not" I never said that I thought the Solicitor was acting properly or otherwise. I pointed out in my first post that I could understand why a Solicitor would want to have all the "i"s and "t"s crossed to safeguard himself from future negligence claims. The point I have been trying to tease out through this thread is as follows :
If it is the case that the Solicitor could not have acted any other way without leaving himself open to negligence suits and yet he didnt manage to get the desired outcome, then maybe the landlord would have had a better outcome by not employing a Solicitor at all. Or in other words "Are Solicitors really meeting the needs of their clients" which is the point we started from.

My view is that we need Solicitors that can balance the legal side with the practical side to achieve an overall result for the client and I believe that it was achievable in this case but wasn't. As I said this is just an example. I am interested in the wider view and other contributors experiences and examples.
 
I never thought I'd take this side of the legal profession, but let's imagine if the property was let and the tenant then walked. The OP would be ranting about the poor job the solicitor did. From what I have read I'd say they did an adequate job. The landlord is an older man. Fair enough, but nobody was asking him to go out and move the building three feet to the left. It wasn't onerous to think about the matters identified.

References etc. are standard practice for a solicitor to request, and if they didn't there would be a heap of posters suggesting to refer the case to the Law Society.
 
Dr.Debt said:
The landlord is an elderly man who wouldnt be at all familiar with legal matters.He found a tenant for his premises and briefed his Solicitor to take care of drafting the lease and getting it sorted out. To my understanding that was the extent of the brief.

.
Click to expand...

Hi Dr Debt

Your original post is excellent and thought provoking, but the example you gave is not great.

In any transaction I have been involved in, I have driven the transaction and the solicitor has advised. There was a problem with a house I bought and the solicitor brought it to my attention and told me the consequences of going ahead. I accepted the risk.

The landlord and tenant in your case should have driven the transaction. I have seen cases where two solicitors were blocking a deal being done and the clients just told them to do x, y and z. That is what should have happened in your case.

I would not issue a commercial lease without using a solicitor. I would not engage in litigation without using a solicitor. I would not buy or sell a house without a solicitor. But I would try to do some of the following myself.

1) Doing their own wills - draft it myself and get a solicitor to review it
2) Taking out probate - have done this no problem.
3) Downloading templates of letting agreements
4) Avoiding litigation in the collection of debts - This is the fault of the courts system. I have had great work and terrible work by the exact same solicitor on different cases.
5) Researching legal matters on-line and getting "free answers" - Always worth doing
6) Some are even starting to get involved in simple conveyancing - Can you do this in Ireland?
7) Some have taken to defending themselves in Court - what sort of cases?

I have recently advised a friend in an employment law case not to use a solicitor. The final outcome was compensation of €40k , €30k of which went in legal fees. He was a senior guy who could have done much better by himself.

In another case, where a friend took my advice and did not use a solicitor, he got no response at all from his employer. I then advised him to use a solicitor and he got an immediate response.

I have also advised another person to seek to resolve an issue without litigation. Solicitors got involved. They involved barristers and a simple enough issue went rapidly out of control.

I would do my very best to avoid solicitors in the following cases:
Employment law - the EAT is supposed to be a lawyer free zone
Personal Injuries - use injuriesboard.ie
Complaints about financial services - use the FSO
Small claims - use the small claims court

Debt collection is very difficult. It is slow and expensive and time consuming. And at the end of the day, will getting a judgement help? It's often best just to forget about it. Many solicitors won't touch it. Some specialise in it.
 
The same principles apply to accountants as well.

It is hard to find a good accountant in practice.

You can find someone who is good initially and then loses interest.

You can do a lot of the stuff yourself, bookkeeping, payroll, tax etc.

You can improve your chances of doing it by researching online.

But there are some things you can't do yourself, and you should use a practising accountant e.g. specialist tax planning; preparing statutory accounts for a limited company.
 
preparing statutory accounts for a limited company.
Click to expand...
If you have the knowledge there is no legal need to use an accountant. In actual fact they can be very basic accounts with precedent copies available for free.
 
Hi Time

I would think that very few people could prepare a set of accounts, even a simple set of accounts, without some training as an accountant. But maybe accounting packages are advanced enough these days to allow this.

Brendan
 
Sorry now I have to come in here, my expertise is personal injury work and injured people should not (purely in their own interests) apply themselves to the Injuries Board. In fact 90% of claimants thankfully do instruct a solicitor.

The Injuries Board is a pawn of the insurance industry and if you do not wish to get shafted by them instruct a solicitor to handle it on your behalf.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
But I would try to do some of the following myself.

1) Doing their own wills - draft it myself and get a solicitor to review it
2) Taking out probate - have done this no problem.
3) Downloading templates of letting agreements
4) Avoiding litigation in the collection of debts - This is the fault of the courts system. I have had great work and terrible work by the exact same solicitor on different cases.
5) Researching legal matters on-line and getting "free answers" - Always worth doing
6) Some are even starting to get involved in simple conveyancing - Can you do this in Ireland?
7) Some have taken to defending themselves in Court - what sort of cases?
Click to expand...

1. I wouldn't review a will drafted by a client. In general solicitors charge a very small fee for making a will. In my opinion, a client would expect a solicitor to charge even less or nothing to review a will they had drafted. That would be a waste of my time, expertise and indeed open me up to a negligence action far too easily. A will, properly drafted, involves a detailed consultation with client about their relationships, relatives, assets and expectations.

2.I've seen an increase on this forum of people stating that they have taken out a personal probate application. It may well be that they have done their research and know enough to deal with it competently. But I wonder if everyone who takes out probate knows the liability they have personally taken on and are open to for years after the grant issues. I wonder if everyone knows about obligations to serve certain notices,ensuring statutory obligations are met, identifying the beneficiaries, publish creditors notices, obtain all the relevant clearances, insure the assets, ensure that revenue obligations are met in relation to income during the adminstration period, the tax issues that derive from the valuation date and indeed, the very fundamental yet basic difference between valuation date, date of death, date of grant, and how to protect themselves from potential future actions etc. Because if everyone knew just how open they are leaving themselves by doing it improperly...

3. Templates are, in general, a good tool, but need to be tailored. Grand, if you know the provisions of the relevant acts and obligations.

4. Debt collection- like a great deal of litigation, one of the first discussions I have with any client in any form of litigation is in relation to costs and possible outcome.

5. Googling legal research...we all google for information, all the time. But there is a great deal of misinformation out there too, information in relation to other jurisdictions which is simply not relevant and confusing information. I wouldnt expect anyone not to do it, I google things myself to get a general idea of something I don't know anything about, but you have to take it with a pinch of salt and make sure you don't get led down the wrong path too.

6. Conveyancing is hard. It's actually the one type of legal work that pushes professional indemnity insurance premiums sky high because it generates most negligence claims. Anyone who really knows anything about conveyancing will know how hard it is. Title is not straightforward. To be good at conveyancing you have to have a huge amount of experience.

7.Cases where they are not a mark and have no money, mainly and where they don't have a good case to make so there is no possibility of having costs awarded against the other party. Bank repossession actions and the like.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
I have recently advised a friend in an employment law case not to use a solicitor. The final outcome was compensation of €40k , €30k of which went in legal fees. He was a senior guy who could have done much better by himself.

In another case, where a friend took my advice and did not use a solicitor, he got no response at all from his employer. I then advised him to use a solicitor and he got an immediate response.

.
Click to expand...

One is contradicting the other. Because without the solicitor the second guy was getting nowhere.

And getting compensation of 40K have having to pay 30K is mind boggling. Would he have gotton 40K if he did his own arguing or would he have still only received 10K. I don't have the answer but this is part of the problem. If you're not used to dealing with the EAT you could lose out big time if you go it alone.

And you hit the nail on the head there in relation to Dr. Debts thread, his 'bad' example is not standing up to scrutiny. And seems to be another case of bashing a professional because a deal was lost. Looks to me like the solicitor was doing an excellent job.
 
Vanilla said:
1. I wouldn't review a will drafted by a client. In general solicitors charge a very small fee for making a will.

2.. But I wonder if everyone who takes out probate knows the liability they have personally taken on and are open to for years after the grant issues.

Because if everyone knew just how open they are leaving themselves by doing it improperly...

.
Click to expand...

I completely agree with you on wills. BB's example of him drafting a will and then having it reviewed must be exceedingly rare. And I assume his solicitor was willing to do it for him as he's a good client etc - he may clarify if he wishes.

A will only costs a couple of hundred (it used to be 100 pounds before I left Ireland) and is the cheapest legal service that exists, so cheap that it's practically free so it is the one area that people should most definitely use a solicitor. Particularly as it's so important. Some credit unions used to have a scheme for getting wills done cheaply, maybe this still exists.

In relation to probate, its very costly, and there are horror stories about costs on this always and often on AAM (even on this thread). This is due to the fact that solicitor's tend to charge for it based on the estate value rather than the work involved. A simple estate where there is say one house worth 3 million versus a simple estate where there is one house worth 100K should cost the same but they never do. But I'd agree with you that it would be better to hire a professional if the estate is in any way complicated. Many people do seem to on AAM have managed it successfully so I assume it must be fairly simple estates and also people who are very competent at following paper trails.

In relation to conveyancing, can an ordinary person do their own conveyance? In any case as you pointed out this can be very complex, so it's very risky. One thing I've never understood is why is it so complex and my conclusion is that is is deliberately so in order to keep it the bread and butter of the legal professionals. In addition is is an extremely stressful transaction for everybody. It never fails to amaze me why the Law Society hasn't done more to modernise. Maybe the new land registry (wrong name -sorry) will make everything more smooth and transparent. I don't think the fees I've paid have been anything but reasonable. But solicitors, not yourself obviously, should be clear on the costs involved. The quote should be including VAT and making it abundently clear about registrations fees etc and also that other annoying thing, postage/miscellanous (cannot remember that one either)etc.

(As an aside, I have a relation whose new registration is a complete mess with the requirements being demanded by said new land registry, luckily it's not the purchaser who will have to pay for the work of the solicitor as they were at fault in not registering on time with the old land registry and there is now a problem with boundries and two titles etc)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top