Firstly they don't even tell you how long your appointment is or its purpose- making it very difficult to manage time with what I told them in my half hour appointment as I was operating on the assumption it was an hour. You aren't given clear billing information remotely. Secondly- they ALL interrupt you and jump to conclusions rather than asking further questions to get more information before giving advice. It felt very much like the solicitor I spoke to was on my recovering drug addict absent fathers side. She was actually slightly offensive at some points in all honesty. After she hurried me off the phone half an hour before I was expecting to be speaking to her- she wanted me to pay an additional £90 to then decide what went in the letter I wanted, however it became quite obvious during our initial conversation that she would be deciding not only went in the letter, but what was best for my children. I rang back and told the reception to tell her to not bother because I wasn't happy with the conversation, it was very clear she wasn't listening to me whatsoever tbh. The following day another solicitor from the same firm rang me to 'discuss' my concerns,be aware that this didn't include any sort of apology or empathy but instead was me getting through 2.5 sentences til she interrupted me with why she is right. It was just absolutely ridiculous defending of the first solicitor, who btw, apparently did a draft of my letter a portion of which she read out to me and surprise surprise was COMPLETELY wrong. I can honestly say that these people aren't interested in their clients, they're going to decide FOR you what you should do, rather than give advice and allow you to make decisions based off that advice which is what they're supposed to do. I ended up hanging up on them after I was interrupted for the 10th time. The girl I initially spoke to sounded quite young so I could of chalked that up to that but when the other one rang me and was the same I think it's clear it's just this firm. It's added quite a lot of stress and obviously down £90 for no reason to what is already a highly stressful situation, you really do not feel like they have your best interests at the forefront, it comes across as they want to make your decisions for you because they think they know best even though frankly not enough info was given on the situation for them to know much about it due to time constraints, and no one bothering to tell me what was expected to happen in appointments.
Imagine being in a horrific situation for 12 years, finally trying to get legal advice and help and you end up feeling not just unsupported, but like they're not interested at all. Complete gut punch in all honesty.
I'd avoid purely based off their attitudes tbh