How to choose a divorce solicitor in Ireland

Searching for divorce solicitors in Dublin, Cork or anywhere else turns up hundreds of firms, most of which list family law alongside conveyancing, probate and personal injury. The question is not where the nearest office is but whether the solicitor does this work every week, what they will charge and whether you need one at all.

First, do you need one?

The Courts Service charges no fee for family law applications and a person can apply for a divorce without a solicitor using the Courts Service forms. Whether that is sensible depends on what has to be decided.

When you may not need a solicitor

• You and your spouse have agreed every term, including maintenance and arrangements for children.
• Neither of you has a pension that needs dividing.
• There is no family home or other property to transfer or sell.
• You both meet the two-year living apart rule (see How long do you have to be separated before divorce in Ireland? The two-in-three-years rule) and the paperwork in Divorce documents in Ireland: every form and when you need it is within your reach.

Even then, many people pay for one meeting, at the survey hourly rate of €250–€400, to have a solicitor read the terms before filing.

When most people do use one

• Pensions. A pension adjustment order is made for each pension and the trustees must be put on notice. Defined benefit and public service pensions usually need an actuarial valuation. Getting this wrong cannot be fixed after the decree. See Pension adjustment orders in Ireland: how a court splits a pension on separation or divorce.
• Property. The family home, a mortgage, a second property or a business all need valuation, and the orders must be drafted so they can be registered and enforced. See Who gets the house in a divorce in Ireland?.
• Disagreement about children. Custody, access and relocation disputes need an adviser who knows how the Circuit Court family list works in your county.
• Domestic abuse or coercive control. Negotiating directly is not safe or fair. Legal aid is free for protection order applications, and the Legal Aid Board gives domestic violence cases a priority appointment.
• A spouse who will not engage or will not disclose. Only a solicitor can bring the motions that force disclosure.

If your means are limited, the first call may be to the Legal Aid Board rather than a private firm: see Legal aid for divorce in Ireland: who qualifies and what you pay.

What family-law specialisation looks like

Any solicitor on the Law Society's roll can act in a divorce. The ones who do it well tend to share features you can check before the first meeting.

• The firm's website describes family law as a practice area with named solicitors, not a line in a list of services.
• The solicitor can tell you, without looking it up, how the family list runs at your Circuit Court venue and how long a consent divorce is currently taking to reach a hearing date there; the Courts Service does not publish venue waiting times.
• They talk about mediation and separation agreements before they talk about litigation. The 1996 Act requires a solicitor acting in a divorce to discuss reconciliation, mediation and a separation agreement with you and to certify that they did (Form 37D).
• They have handled pension adjustment orders in schemes like yours and can name the actuaries they use.
• They work regularly with family-law barristers and can say when one would be needed and roughly what that adds.

The Law Society's Find a solicitor register confirms that a solicitor holds a current practising certificate. It does not rank or recommend; specialisation is something you have to establish for yourself.

Questions to ask at the first meeting

Most firms charge for a first consultation; a few offer a fixed-price initial meeting. Either way, arrive with your marriage date, the date you began living apart, a list of assets, debts and pensions, and your questions written down.

1. How much of your work is family law, and how many divorces did you take to decree last year?
2. Will you handle my case personally, or will a trainee or another solicitor do the day-to-day work, and at what rate?
3. Based on what I have told you, which of the three routes am I on: consent, partly agreed or contested?
4. What would a fixed fee cover for the consent route, and what would take me outside it?
5. Which pensions here need an actuary, and what do you expect that to cost?
6. Do you think a barrister will be needed, at what stage, and will their fee be in my section 150 notice?
7. How will you keep me informed about costs as the case goes on?
8. What should I be doing now, before the papers are issued, to keep the cost down?

What a section 150 costs notice must contain

Under section 150 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015, a solicitor or barrister must give you a written notice of costs on receiving your instructions. The Act requires it to set out:

• the legal costs, or where that is not practicable the basis on which they will be calculated;
• the amount of VAT;
• for a court case, an outline of the work to be done at each stage and the costs for each stage;
• the likely consequences for costs if you withdraw or the case is discontinued;
• the circumstances in which you could be ordered to pay the other party's costs;
• a cooling-off period of up to 10 working days, during which the solicitor does not start work unless you confirm that you want them to.

If it becomes clear that costs will go beyond what the notice said, the solicitor must give you a new notice as soon as they become aware of it. A solicitor who starts work without a notice, or whose final bill departs from the notice without a fresh one, is in breach. Keep every notice you receive.

Fixed fee or hourly

Many firms offer a fixed fee for a consent divorce where the terms are already agreed, and bill hourly, or in stages, for anything contested. The survey's hourly rates of €250–€400 are per solicitor hour; barristers, actuaries and valuers are added on top as outlays.

A fixed fee is worth having, but read what it covers. Typical exclusions are outlays, more than one court attendance, any contested motion, pension work and changes to the agreed terms after drafting. Ask what happens to the fee if your spouse's solicitor reopens a point. On hourly work, ask for a cap or a staged estimate, and for a monthly statement of time recorded so there are no surprises at the end. Both arrangements must still be written into a section 150 notice.

Who regulates solicitors

Two bodies matter to you as a client.

The Law Society of Ireland is the regulatory, educational and membership body for solicitors. It issues practising certificates, keeps the roll and the Find a solicitor register, and oversees solicitors' professional indemnity insurance.

The Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA) is the independent body that handles complaints from the public about solicitors and barristers, including complaints about excessive costs, inadequate service and misconduct, and that oversees the section 150 regime. If you believe a bill is excessive or you were not given a proper costs notice, raise it with the firm in writing first; if that does not resolve it, the LSRA's complaints process is on lsra.ie.

A note on DivorceWise's enquiry form

DivorceWise is an information site, not a law firm, and does not act for anyone. If you use the enquiry form on the solicitor page, your details are passed to a partner family-law firm only with your consent, given on the form itself, and that firm will give you its own section 150 notice before any work starts. How the arrangement works, and what the site receives, is set out on /disclosure.

Where this leaves you

If everything is agreed and there are no pensions or property, you may not need a solicitor at all. If there are pensions, a home, a dispute about children or a history of abuse, most people use one, and the solicitor to choose is the one who does family law every week, answers the questions above plainly and puts the cost in writing before starting. the cost and route planner shows what each route is likely to cost before you book a meeting, and the solicitor page explains how to arrange a first consultation.