How to find a good solicitor

I wrote a little bit about what problems some lawyers cause and why, in my experience, it is often better to have no solicitor that the one that I was able to find. It is absurd situation that should not be possible in democracy with free market as specialist should be able to do task more efficiently.

I know how to fix the problem (or at least what I can do), but it will require a lot of resources (that I do not have). Let look at the solution and what is possible to do, while I am working on it. There is a lot of experience and knowledge that I gained since then. I wish someone told me about it earlier.

Specialization

Depending on what services you want the way to look for a solicitor will differ. Because of my experience and the significance of impact I will mostly focus on few areas of law (areas are grouped by the criteria provided by Law Society of NSW).

1. Personal Injury Law - Motor Vehicle Injuries - Plaintiff
2. Litigation - Professional Negligence - Legal
3. Miscellaneous - Solicitors Costs Disputes

However, this does not mean that this guide is not useful in finding lawyer in other area of law. Just main data is about the ones mentioned above.

Ways to look for solicitor

This is conclusion that I come after 9 years dealing with personal injury claim and misconduct of my lawyers. I contacted probably about 50 law firms and organizations. So, this is a list of my preferred methods to find and compare solicitors.

1. Data driven
2. Recommendations
3. Local area
4. Law Society database
5. Internet search

Data driven

There were few parameters that can be sequential for every case and can be easily compared. Yes, every case is different, but without reliable data you are guided by false promises and that proved to be a very bad way to judge how well solicitor will represent you.

Reliable data

There were some criteria that is easy to calculate, but gives very good indication of how good solicitor is. For personal injury compensation claims there were two main factors the compensation you got and the fees solicitor charge. There were many other criteria, but these were a bit more difficult to express in numbers. For compensation claim the key factor is the compensation you get. However, in practice I found that the huge factor is exaggerated legal fees that can make your compensation useless. This is a data of 3 solicitor who represented me.

Compensation and fees proportions

Firm	Best offer	Billed fees	Other expenses	Estimated left sum	Fees as percentage after expenses
Law Partners personal injury firm	$250,000	$173,369.01	$4,958.21 medical disbursements, $5,444.48 medical and legal disbursements, $11,000 Centrelink, $11,000 Medicare	$44,228.30	80%
Moya de Luca-Leonard	$400,000	$77,071.5	$2,970 medical disbursements	$69,958.50	52%
Slattery Thompson - Peter Livers	$452,248.70	$31,701.07		$20,547.63	61%

Law Society database

You can get list of solicitors in your area and practising particular law by using law society solicitor referral service. They do not provide any ranking. However, these were only solicitors that members of Law Society (lawyers union). I found this database to outdated and inaccurate. I had bad experience with the lawyers whom I found using this service. I also had very bad experience dealing with Law Society. I am no longer using it. I strongly recommend not using it.

Ways to check solicitor

1. Reviews
2. Past and present cases

Reviews

Most of solicitors have some sort of web site but does not provide any reliable information about the quality of work or potential problems. Same can be said about recommendations on sites like Google maps. Most of these sites focuses on their paying customers - firms that receive reviews. I used only Google maps review so far. There are other sites that provide reviews like:

• Birdeye.com
• Avvo
• Lawyers.com
• Findlaw.com
• LegalMatch
• Martindale-Hubbell

I will write about them too, when I have a time to have a look at them.

Write your reviews

If you feel particularly strongly about some business or service write a review. It is some extra work and there is some anxiety related to it. Think how much it would have helped you if you found your review about them when you needed it. The emotional reward for doing the right thing is much greater than the risk you are taking by writing the truth.

I try and recommend including the following in the review:

1. Write the truth.
2. Provide context.
3. List key problems, start with the biggest.
4. Write what impact it had.
5. Write how it made you feel, if appropriate. Your emotions are valid and true. You are allowed to express them.
6. Keep it reasonably short. People like to be able to read quickly, but if the story requires further explanation, then provide it.

I wrote reviews and I am publishing my story. Yes, I have received some threats, but no-one went further than that. Maybe because they were lawyers, and they know that I have a right to write what I wrote.

Google maps

After looking at many different reviews about solicitor firms I can tell that unfortunately many of these reviews look fake. There is no way to tell for sure, but two things I would pay attention too:

1. How real reviewers profile looks like: does it have name, phone, how many reviews.
2. How detail is review. I think that when people write genuine review, they like to tell their story. While it is hard to invent many stories while writing fake reviews, but possible.

I have been looking for reviews on Google Maps way before I got injured. So, I checked reviews about some specialist I went to see. I was planning to write my own reviews about my own experience. However, some things went terribly wrong, and these thoughts get blocked. I have written first review on February 2024, almost 9 years after I thought about it. And this happened only because I accidentally stumbled upon them when looking for information somewhere else. It took me another 3 months to remember that I should write about all people and organisations with whom I had to deal after road traffic injury and very long recovery path that I am still on. I will start with bad ones as I feel it is important to warn other people about the danger.

QBE

Empire of evil. I cannot come up with a better name. It is the best way to describe my experience with QBE.

I learned that having a claim with QBE was a re-traumatizing experience. It took more than 8 years. QBE has dragged time and disregarded the law in ways I did not expect. Some examples:

• I felt pressured to withdraw my claim starting from the first call from QBE after I notified them about the road collision.
• They are required by law to respond about liability (and there was no question about it) in 3 months, but they took 3 years to respond.
• QBE never paid for any treatment. Instead, I was sent to different specialists with an empty promise that they will pay after assessment. I also never got their psychologist assessment report, but

instead, later I was sent to another one.

• The statements they provided (including their lawyers) break basic laws of physics: I would need a teleportation device and time travel for it to be true, or other statements just pure fiction.

It scares me to think that there were people at QBE who take these actions intentionally.

I am strongly convinced that if you were considering taking insurance from QBE it would be much better for you to throw your money away. This way when you are vulnerable and need help you will not need to defend yourself against QBE attacks.

For some time, I thought, how is this possible? How could a business exist that treats people this way?

They knew that road traffic injury caused me mental health problems (PTSD) as they had all medical reports and assessment. It seems this is why they pushed so absurdly hard seeking to break me. At the end it took a lot of my time, a huge toll on my mental and physical health to the point where I was no longer able to continue and had to accept absurdly low compensation.

I believe my case is not exceptional in any way, and that abuse is the way they conduct their business. I read a bit about QBE. It seems they actually do the same nasty things to other people too. It is just an empire of evil in the true sense of its name. I found on the Internet the court cases where QBE denied treatment because people had COVID.

PTSD makes it very difficult to talk about it. I am left to live with a feeling of injustice. After several months I realised there is something I can do. At least I can write a review about it.

BTW if you think that you hire lawyers to shield you from all these problems you may find yourself in even more trouble, but that is another story.

Left Outside of my review

If there is one, then it is QBE. If you image how evil, they can be they will surprise you by passing your all expectations. They will manage to be evil in the way you have not expected. In my experience they brake law to absurd level just to harm you and break your spirit to make you withdraw your claim. I understand that there were way more horrible things in this world. However, I am thinking about my experience how they conduct business as a company.

I found it very shocking how QBE operates. I expected that they will find a way to minimize compensation. However, the way they do it makes me thing that they were breaking the law. I am in no way an expert. I need to write examples, and someone maybe can correct me. Just it takes time, and I am so out of energy, but I will come bac to this.

Law Partners

Law Partners is the firm that I strongly recommend avoiding. Mine and some others reviews are on Law Partners page.

Vanitha Moodley

To avoid offending other people who might be having same name her is her work address: 2 Marella Ave Kellyville NSW 2155.

I have seen only very few true evil people and Moodley is one of them. If you see her as a psychologist, then run as fast as you can. If you are sent to her for psychological assessment, then change your solicitor. Any lawyer that even remotely attempts to represent you should not allow this.

It is scary to think how much harm the psychologist with no respect for someone's wellbeing can cause to potential clients.

I have seen psychologist Vanitha Moodley on 2020-03-03 by request of the insurer (QBE) to assess my mental state. I was shocked when I read her report. That report is full of lies, some of them being completely absurd that would require a teleportation device (being in different continents at the same time) and time travel (being affected by future events that I could not have any knowledge of otherwise). Never in my life have I seen anything so full of such absurd lies as this Moodley report. The lies by Moodley can be grouped into 4 categories: 1. Moodley took symptoms after the injury and wrote them as if I had complained about it for the time before the injury. They all were incorrect. Many were even physically impossible. Moodley did not even bother to check the timeline and locations. 2. Moodley flipped over statements writing it completely opposite to what was presented to her or grossly exaggerating them. For example, after being told that I have a problem talking about anything related to injury she wrote “now I can hold a conversation…”. 3. Moodley added some part of her own creation, like statements “I don’t know how to prioritize”. It seems she was copying some statement from another report for another person. It is even more common for the test results she provided as they do not match what was done during assessment. I would not be surprised to find out that she simply copied it from other reports with minimal modifications. 4. Inconsistencies. Moodley contradicts herself constantly. In some cases one statement is followed by exactly the opposite one.

The Moodley report contains over 146 factually incorrect statements. Some are better suited for stand up comedy than a psychologist report.

Law Partners, my lawyers at that time told me that there is nothing I can do about this report. I changed solicitors and independent assessors assigned by the Personal Injury Commission (PIC) threw away her report.

The time passed and with the help of psychologists I was able to assess the impact of these lies in the Moodley report. It connected well with the helplessness I felt when I saw an oncoming car turning right straight into me and I knew my life was over. It connected with the original trauma and became part of my PTSD. QBE Insurance used it a lot and it took me three years of hard fight to dispute these lies.

Moodley flipped my words upside down and used them against me. This makes it very difficult to trust the system and has a negative impact on my mental health. I feel like Moodley perfectly fits the pattern of career criminal, that she can not help herself, but to lie on every occasion. Not just because she was hired to do so, but also because she likes it. Of course so far it is only my opinion, but I hope I can provide enough evidence to confirm it. Moodley wrote so many lies that you would believe that should be considered as criminal action. Especially when she at the beginning of the report mentions that she is bound by the Expert Witness Code.

Moya de Luca-Leonard

Moya de Luca-Leonard represented me for . It is a part of my larger story of the Legal fees and my (personal injury claim).

She promised a lot, but did only one thing (submitted application for further medical assessment and got my PTSD recognized). Yet, charged as if she has done everything and more.

This is a more pressing issue as I have not done anything about it yet. Simply had no time. However, the last reply I got from OLSC is that they may take 6 months before they look at my complaints due to current workload. There were some Moya actions that been hidden in my mind that are resurfacing only now, after the tribunal:

• She told me that the court case against the driver for damage to the bicycle and CTP insurance claim are linked. Later on, I found that this is not true. This caused me an enormous amount of mental health damage.
• She ignored my plea to include information about factually incorrect assessment provided by a psychologist hired by QBE solicitors, and the same incorrect statements by QBE solicitor. This made a huge impact on my claim making it almost impossible to claim loss of income.
• She resigned from my claim without completing it, yet with exaggerated legal costs.

Peter Livers

If I say that Peter Livers acted extremely incompetently, that would be too soft. Based on my experience, I would not recommend using this solicitor in any circumstance. I believe you would be better off having no representation.

Peter Livers from Slattery Thompson law firm represented me at the Personal Injury Commission assessment conference. If you can imagine the worst possible representation when the solicitor does everything possible for your claim to fail then you imagine exactly how I felt. Having no solicitor would be much better. Livers could not answer a single question from the assessor and insisted that I ignore very strict warnings from the assessor that if I leave some of the sums proposed by Livers he will ignore it and look only at QBE insurance suggestions. However, the biggest blow came when it was time for Livers to ask me questions to present an accurate version of the whole story. He asked only one unrelated question "how many potted plants do you have in your garden"? This was it. He did not dispute any absurdly incorrect statements from the QBE solicitor. Just an absurd level of misrepresentation. I feel that he intentionally wanted to reduce the compensation amount. There might have been some warning signs. I spent almost a year collecting evidence about incorrect statements by the QBE solicitor. However, Livers refused for me to provide this information in my statement, saying that it will have more value if it is included in his written submission. Then he did not include any of this information in his submissions. He said that he will present everything during the assessment. Livers told me that he has 30 years of experience in personal injury claims. That he knows the system very well and will represent me with a high level of skills. And then none of the evidence disputing QBE statements were presented.

There were actions by Livers that can be identified as professional misconduct and negligence, while many others may only be described as corruption - that is the only logical explanation I can come up with.

After the assessment, without contributing anything useful for my claim and causing only damage and stress, he is asking for more than $30k for his fees.

Other reviews

Now he has more accurate review from other people as well warning not to use his services while it is still dominated by what seems to be fake positive reviews. I wish these reviews were there when I was thinking about engaging Livers.

Please check on Google Maps for, but this is the one that I like:

I was ripped off by this guy and his barrister mate Greg Watkins, $12000 for 45 mins of court time with hardly any preparation work needed!!! Take advantage of people in real bad situations, I hope the worst for these kind of people…

Past and present cases

You can have a look at the court cases they have been involved in and the results they got. If your solicitor claims to have more than 10 years of experience, but have not been in court even single time, I found it as a clear indication that he is bullshitting your and will push for a settlement at any cost. Determinations from court cases are public.

• Personal Injury Commission provides information where you can find their decisions.
• New South Wales Caselaw - decisions for all courts and Tribunals
• Australasian Legal Information Institute
• Supreme Court of New South Wales Court of Appeal
• Check list of upcoming court cases in online court registry. Maybe you can see the solicitor in action.

Similar cases

One of the ways to look for solicitors is going through past cases where they have dealt with the same problem, for example cost assessment, corrupt government official or lawyers misconduct.

This approach can be very labor intensive and one day I will be able to provide a system to help access verified data, but until this time I am writing a guide and if you are lucky, it may not be so much work.

Changing lawyers

In my experience, changing lawyers happen way more often that any other profession I know. I think this is due to very poor quality of service they provide. There are few important considerations to keep in mind when changing lawyers:

1. Previous lawyers are required to transfer you file to new lawyers.
2. Previous lawyers may entitled to some legal fees for their work they have done. This is ensured through tripartite agreement between you, new lawyers and previous lawyers. The important part to look for is to agree to pay only reasonable fees that you may be required to pay as agreed or assessed.
3. New lawyers often will offer to deal with previous lawyers fees as they are required to make sure that previous lawyers are paid reasonable fees for their work.
4. As changing lawyers is common practice new solicitors often do not charge for taking new client even if it is from previous solicitors.

Follow the link on options how to deal with previous lawyers legal fees.