Can I change my solicitor?

If you are unhappy with the service received from your solicitor and want to find a new one, you can change solicitor at any time.

There are some issues that you will need to consider before making that important decision. Perhaps the most important issue, however, is whether you are totally confident that the new solicitor is going to do a better job for you. You should:

• Speak to the actual person who will be dealing with your claim. Do you feel confident in the abilities of the person you have spoken to?
• Ask the person about their qualifications and experience, and for examples of similar cases that they may have dealt with in the past.
• Ask them for their proposed action plan. You really do need to know and understand what your new solicitor is proposing to do and why.
• Is the new solicitor confident that they can obtain interim payments for you?

Funding/costs

Who pays your current solicitor costs? Your case file belongs to you, although your solicitor has the right to hold on to it until their costs are paid. However, solicitors will almost always agree to release their file in return for an undertaking from the new solicitor that they will claim those costs at the conclusion of the case.

If your claim is funded by Legal Expenses Insurance you can still change solicitors and do not have to stay with the panel firm appointed for you, regardless of what your legal expenses insurers tell you. The Financial Ombudsman Service is sympathetic to people who have lost faith or confidence in their solicitors. Under the The Insurance Companies (Legal Expenses Insurance) Regulations 1990, once proceedings are issued (and this is when you do need insurance) your legal expense insurers have no choice; they have to insure you.

If you're tired of never being able to speak to your solicitor on the phone, or by the lack of progress and/or updates about what they are doing on your behalf then contact Flora Wood for a free consultation about your case. If we can help, we will ask you to sign a release form and then we will contact your old solicitors to organise for the papers to be transferred securely to us. It's unlikely that you will need to speak to your old solicitors again.