Daniel Stanton's response

This question needs a more complex answer than it appears at first and some background may help.

On the one hand, common courtesy would suggest that it is only proper that your solicitor should confirm that they are no longer acting on your behalf, however sometimes it is not that straightforward.

For example, if you instruct a solicitor to deal with a particular matter and that has finished, your solicitor may well return any correspondence confirming that they are no longer instructed, to give the sender an opportunity to contact you direct (whereupon of course you should take legal advice straightaway). What you wouldn't necessarily want is for your solicitor to hang on to the correspondence for a week whilst they try and get in touch with you.

I would not normally return correspondence without checking with my (former) client, but then in the work I do (Commercial Property transactions) my clients often have a relationship involving many transactions in a series - I would usually write to the client first before confirming I wasn't instructed, if that's the case.

The legally-aided sector may be a little different due to Government policy. A little while ago now the previous Government introduced 'competitive tendering', which had the effect of cutting the number of firms carrying out legal aid work by as much as 40%. Those law firms are losing their legal aid certificates almost straightaway, and a number of my professional friends from other firms have suffered from redundancy because of it. If the firm you instructed has lost its legal aid certificate (not necessarily because it has done anything wrong) then you can just imagine the number of enquiries they may have from clients who need to go elsewhere. "Last matter resolved" may mean something else to the Community Legal Service (formerly the Legal Aid Board).

I can't say whether the firm you used is affected, but it may explain the lack of attention to your calls.

I have the luxury of having a little time before I take annual leave to prepare notes on all my transactions, but your legal aid solicitor may not have had that luxury, as they usually have to take on more current matters than the rest of us because legal aid rates are very much poorer than other areas of practice and the solicitor needs to do work in volume just to pay the bills. Did you know that time spent waiting at Court is sometimes billable at less than the National Minimum Wage, which is before you deduct a lot of the expenses incurred.

I do not want to excuse poor service, just give an idea of what may be causing the problem. It may be that the different people you spoke to aren't 'joining up' in the way you would expect or as they should do.

By way of practical advice, I would suggest perhaps that you write to the partner of the firm who is head of the family department (or some other partner if the head of department is your solicitor) explaining the problem you are having in getting a response and asking if they could spare a moment to look at it. The name of the person to write to should have been told to you in the initial letter you received when you first instructed the solicitor. This doesn't have to be a hostile step, just a polite enquiry. There is a duty on solicitors to respond to their clients within a reasonable time, but sometimes there can be disagreement about what a "reasonable time" might be.

I hope the response above helps. In the meantime, you might be best advised to move on and seek legal advice at another firm, but it's too difficult to say for sure without knowing all the facts.