Family and Friends Forum

You can't have legal aid prior to charges

Totally understand this post

This happened to us and it frustrated us so much. They weren't interested to listen to our evidence for a defence or anything. Essentially if you are waiting for devices to come back they will advise you once they are back. Basically they are dealing with cases they need to actually defend right now as opposed to allegations if you get me. I know its hard but sitting tight is all you can do really until you hear further. But this was honestly the most frustrating thing of it for me.

Having been through all this twice, both with LA solicitors, they do the absolute bare minimum and rarely communicate unless it's something urgent for the next day in court, in my experience.

It's not all that different when you pay £££ either. Don't fork out the money, or even worse money you don't even have, instead educate yourself and defend yourself through your representation, instead of expecting them to do it for you (if that makes sense).

Yes this sounds right! We went with the duty solicitor as my son felt comfortable with him, we've attended court twice and have never met him, 1st time we had a stand in solicitor and yesterday he wasn't even in court as was 'busy with another case'

Same happened to us but we did not use the duty solicitor and in hindsight the duty solicitor may have been better than the imbecile we ended up with, as I said in another post do your research and employ someone who can demonstrate history and success, ours was only interested in our finances to get legal aid despite telling him on multiple occasions we would not qualify, he still persisted, we were rejected and the time and money spent on that cost us massively!

Katie.... same thing happened with us we kept asking our solicitor questions and every single one, even to this day, has been unanswered, he was calling and emailing non stop when applying for LA even thought we told him this was unnecessary he spent almost a month do the LA paperwork for no reason and is still massively failing my child, barrister yesterday gave us more answers in to 20 minute meeting we had with him than what we have had in a year with the solicitor x

Hi Katie and Mummy !
Wow - I thought it was just my Son's Solicitor. He was the duty one from when he got arrested -3 yrs down the line now. I get my emails Ignored and when he rings it's like he can't wait to get off the phone! Only met the Barrister once and she seemed brilliant. Why do Legal Aid Solicitors ignore clients ? They are still getting paid. Just on a human level I expected a response , being a distressed Mother - is it really all about money ?

Winnie I believe it is all about money, I am not saying for all but the more I hear the more convinced I am they have an agenda and they don't always have their clients interest at heart, ours certainly didn't. I know there are excellent solicitors out there, I just wish we had found one but never mind, we are in a good place now.

Katie,

I make it my business to keep him on his toes and ask any relevant questions. My Son has just had assessments by a Forensic Psychiatrist and Psychologist, I have at least been able to fire any questions at them. My Son wouldn't have a clue how to defend himself

I just don't get why , if the Solicitor is getting paid anyway, why they can't just reply. I do think however that they don't like leaving a paper trail !

Winnie07



Lagal Aid solicitors don't get paid like private solicitors and they're utterly overwhelmed with the sheer volume of work in exactly the same way as the courts are hence we're 3 years 2 months post knock with 6 adjournments for sentencing so far due to court delays.