I was initially recommended Forrester's through a friend even though i was not from the area. To be fair they are very approachable and friendly solicitors but i did feel as though the divorce was dragging a little and didn't think the letters to the opposite side were strong enough to move the divorce forward.
Both the solicitor who handled the start of my divorce and the PA are very on side but once my divorce got to the case of going to court, because it was likely that the hearing would be moved to my partners area, they didn't even give me the option of paying for them to represent me, they said they would have to hand off to a local solicitor to the court.
I found this extremely unsatisfactory that someone who knew nothing of my case would turn up on the day of the court having had a day or so to review the notes and go in with a best can do approach to see what he could do. This for me was the nail in the coffin and i abruptly moved solicitors immediately.
The final bill i got was a lot lower than i thought it would have been and considering the charges i have now from my new solicitors only leaves me with the thought of how much work were you really doing.
I'm sure if you live locally things go a lot smoothly although the original friend who recommended them also believes that their case went rather slow as well compared with other divorces of people we spoke to and considering we are both in the Military, that's quite a lot for us to compare against.