Manleys Solicitors Limited

Advice to law firm management: It would be great if they actually provided legal advice as part of the service

Pros: Very responsive, they focus on personal touch (to make up for the lack of actual legal advice) and good at describing unseen work in great detail to justify their fees

Cons: I found them highly skilled at relieving clients from their money for little to no value. Some of their tactics are to provide detailed descriptions of unseen work and detailed itemised bills of "checking", "liaising", "prepping/reviewing" for which a big surprise bill is sent with no tangible output or advice produced. Very good at complicating simple matters to create billable hours: Billed a lot of hours to download an application form (which anyone can download from the court website) and completing the form addresses (which I could have done myself). I was wondering why the lawyer had kindly called me so many times to discuss a new instruction (and why we were repeating information so much) until I received a bill including 1.5 hours of calls and other work that I wasn't even aware had been done but I did not have much of choice and was forced to pay (or else I risked that they refuse to do my urgent matter). I was told that the solicitor had spent a lot of time reading the papers and prepping but whenever I spoke to her she did not show any evidence that she understood the basics of the case and all she did was repeat everything that I said. When I complained, the owner sent a long and rambling and very condescending letter blaming everything on me and saying that I did not like his advice even though I did not receive anything that looked like legal advice based on logic or legal principles. FYI the other Counsel has admitted that he made an error in the advice and this means the owner's was wrong and you will hear from me about the further fees that you owe me. Even though 90% of the agreed tasks were NOT done, the owner responded to my complaint and refund request with a big invoice detailing me all the unseen "work" that had been carried out and that I got a "discount." The owner does not like negative feedback and threatened to sue me for posting an honest review.

Partners to Avoid and Why: Everyone

Current or former employee?: Current Employee

Job type: Full time