Funding

We have a contract with the Legal Aid Agency and can process your application for Legal Aid if you qualify. Legal aid is often means and merits tested and only available in relation to particular areas of law. The legal aid agency assess all applications and their decision is final in terms of eligibility. We have no influence in relation to eligibility and the criteria for legal aid is made by the Government.

Legal Aid for Family Law has since April 2014 become severely limited. If you are a parent or have Parental Responsibility for a child involved in Care Proceedings or Supervision Order Proceedings or are in the PLO process with a Local Authority, you will be entitled to Legal Aid automatically. It is not means and merits tested.  Otherwise, Legal Aid remains available for some other family matters if you are a victim of domestic abuse or you have a child who is the victim of harm and you are not the person alleged to have caused the harm. Legal aid for these matters is means and merits tested so as part of your application you will have to provide evidence of your financial circumstances which is very specific. You will also need to satisfy the merits test before legal aid is granted and you are issued with a legal aid certificate.

If we think from your initial enquiry that you might qualify for Legal Aid, we will tell you the documents that you will need to bring to the office so that we can process your application. Do remember that it is your responsibility to provide the documents required by the Legal Aid Agency. We cannot obtain these papers for you as they are nearly always confidential to you. We cannot process your application without the complete set of documents as the Legal Aid Agency will reject anything that is incomplete.

To find out more about whether you are eligible for legal aid, please contact us below or call us on 01823 256 494.

We do not offer free legal advice or free initial appointments. We do however offer fixed price appointments as described below.

We offer fixed price advice sessions at a competitive price which includes an appointment with a lawyer for up to 1 hour and confirmation of our advice in writing. This service suits people who want initial advice or who want to run their own case in person but take advice from time to time. The price is for a fixed amount that must be paid in full (by card or cash) at the appointment even if the session does not last a full hour.

If you decide to instruct us at hourly rates, we will at the outset provide you with an estimate of fees that will be confirmed in writing. It is often impossible to be completely accurate in an estimate at the outset as we will not know all of the information that may emerge or how difficult it is going to be to negotiate sensibly with the other party. Our estimate will also rely upon you accepting reasonable advice. We will therefore revise our estimate from time to time as the amount of work required becomes clearer.

We have a range of fee earners with different levels of expertise, qualifications and experience. Our lawyers charging rates vary and include VAT but do not include expenses for other services such as expert fees, court fees or barristers fees. These expenses have to be paid in addition to our fees.

We normally ask you to pay money on account of fees and to keep this topped up as matters progress. We reserve the right to cease acting for you if you fall behind with such payments.

Any expenses such as court fees, barristers fees or expert fees will have to be paid by you in advance. We cannot pay any of these bills for you and we will not proceed without the money on account.

The usual position in family proceedings is for each party to be responsible for their own costs. The Court does have a discretion to order one party to pay the costs of the other but this does depend on the circumstances of the case and the behaviour of the parties.

It is very unusual for one party to be ordered to pay the costs of the other in a case concerning the welfare of a child. Costs orders are more common within financial proceedings but an order will generally only be made be made if one party has failed to be open and honest about their finances or has disobeyed the rules or orders of the Court or indeed if a party has simply behaved in a thoroughly unreasonable manner causing the other party to incur unnecessary costs.

Get in touch with us about our family law services

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