Urgent advice

[Bighterfuture]

Hi please can I get some advice ,could someone please tell me who pays for physiological report ,I get legal aid ,the court ordered me to get a physiological report which I did in January, I changed solicitor in June, and now the old solicitor whom I was with when I got the report ,is saying she wont pay for it she has been ignoring the new solicitor, have been waiting over ten months for this report, all the lac reviews and court dates have been cancelled as everyone is waiting for the report, any information would be brilliant as I feel like I'm at the end of my tether. My child has been on ico for nineteen months now.

[Bighterfuture]

Please will someone answer me

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Bighterfuture

Welcome to the parents’ discussion forum and thanks for posting.

My name is Suzie, online adviser at Family Rights Group.

It appears from your post that you have concerns about how the report is to be paid for as you are in receipt of legal aid. Usually, in care proceedings it will depend on whether the expert was instructed jointly or by an individual party.

If it was your solicitor who instructed the expert then your legal aid certificate should cover it. There would be a request made to the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) for the expenditure to be incurred. This is the case, even if the cost is to be shared. So, the solicitor who was acting for you at that time ought to pay the expert’s costs. Your new solicitor can find out from the LAA whether they approved the expense or not.

Your new solicitor should also be able to see from your file which your previous solicitor would have sent to them once your legal aid certificate was transferred to them.

There is also the possibility of making a complaint about the previous solicitor’s failure to respond to correspondence.

You may find it helpful to read our advice sheet Care (and related) proceedings

I hope this helps.

Best wishes

Suzie