There are significant benefits for clients experiencing relationship difficulties in assessing what style of resolution will assist the best outcome, at a very early stage. It is all too easy for solicitors to fall into a default mode of seeking to progress stages of the case through correspondence. Confirming milestones in writing can be invaluable but using letters to detail each issue on a case can be laborious, time consuming and divisive. There are many alternative opportunities. Very few cases absolutely require litigation as a means of resolution, from the onset. The opportunity exists for solicitors to pick up a phone to speak to another solicitor; or, bring the parties to an informal round table meeting; or, encourage the parties to progress certain issues between themselves direct; or, to use formal discursive processes such as mediation or collaborative process. These are all skillsets in the toolbox of resolution.
Most clients when asked what they want, will not describe a named process. To a client what is important is “sorting it out”. As an umbrella description this makes sense to the layman. By this clients mean that the minimum possible is spent on fees, with the process taking the least amount of time, with the best outcome and with the least destruction to personal relationships. Careful evaluation of the case in the very early stages provides the best chance to achieve this. There are a number of factors which need to be considered. The nature of the personalities involved can often be as important as the detail of the pattern of childcare or the nature of the asset base. Understanding who wants what and why, is a very useful indicator to what process is most likely to work best.
The other element often overlooked is to bring in complimentary professional experts at that same very early stage. There are many examples where this works: where one spouse is potentially suspicious of the value of a business owned by the other, using an accountant very early on to explore the perspective of that suspicion can give a very factual base to what level of anxiety or risk is reasonable; obtaining financial advice not just on pensions but on the options available to factor against what each party’s future life will cost can inevitably identify sensible proposals for division of financial assets. The solicitor can dip in and out of the need of these other professionals but is unlikely on his or her own to achieve as good an overall outcome for the client, without the use of those professionals.
Georgie Hall
Partner
Head of Private Client
