7.4How to choose a specialist solicitor

You do not need to choose a solicitor this week. You also do not need to choose the one whose letter arrived in the post yesterday. Unsolicited, targeted approaches — especially those that turn up the week of diagnosis — are a red flag in this area of law. Always check a firm or claims company on the SRA register (sra.org.uk) and, where relevant, the FCA register, before you sign anything.

Before you ring private firms, check whether you have a free route. Four are worth knowing about:

• Trade unions.If you, your spouse or your parent has ever been a member of a UK trade union, the union may run a free legal service for asbestos diseases. Unite, GMB, Unison, RMT, Usdaw, UCU, NEU, NASUWT, CWU and others all do. Ring the union directly; don’t go through a third party.
• Mesothelioma UK. Mesothelioma UK keeps a panel of lawyers they have come to trust and can suggest how to approach them. Ring the support line on 0800 169 2409 and ask to be put through to the right person.
• AsbestosIQ.AsbestosIQ is this project’s independent review platform for specialist asbestos and mesothelioma solicitors, compensation schemes, and evidence-tracing tools. Each entry is reviewed against a published rubric; we name reviewers, list conflicts of interest, and take no referral fees from any law firm. AsbestosIQ is the main place we point patients and families to when they want to compare options before instructing.
• Asbestos Victims Support Groups’ Forum (AVSGF).Member groups of the AVSGF (asbestosforum.org.uk) often work with one or two specialist firms in their region and can refer you, free, after speaking to you. They take no fee from the law firm and don’t push you to a particular one. This is the strongest regional route, particularly in shipyard, construction and former industrial areas.
• Citizens Advice and Macmillan benefits advisers for non-litigation matters, such as SR1 forms and benefit appeals.

If you decide to instruct a private firm, several UK practices have dedicated asbestos and mesothelioma teams large enough to handle complex tracing of old employers, insurers, and dissolved companies.

We don’t name firms inline in this chapter so that we don’t accidentally rank or endorse them. The canonical comparison sits on AsbestosIQ, and the methodology we use — rankings we draw on, conflicts policy, no-referral-fees rule, review dates — is set out in chapter 12.3.

Things to ask any firm before you sign:

1. How many mesothelioma cases does the named partner running my case settle in a year? You want someone who runs at least a dozen and has a team behind them.
2. What ranking do you hold in Chambers and the Legal 500 for asbestos and industrial disease? A Band 1 or Tier 1 firm isn’t the only good answer, but it’s a useful filter.
3. Will you accept my case under a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA), and what success fee do you charge? Mesothelioma is a special case under the LASPO 2012 reforms. In England and Wales, diffuse mesothelioma claims still benefit from the pre-LASPO regime that allows the success fee and insurance premium to be recovered from the defendant, rather than being deducted from your damages. This is the so-called LASPO mesothelioma exception, and it remains the position as of the date this section was last reviewed; check the review date in chapter 12.4. Scotland operates under separate rules. Whatever the firm proposes, get every figure — success fee, ATE premium, any deduction from damages — in writing before you sign, and ask specifically whether any general damages will be ‘protected’ from deduction.
4. What disbursements might I have to pay if my case fails?Disbursements are out-of-pocket costs, such as medical reports. The answer should be ‘none, we cover them’.
5. How will you trace my old employers and their insurers?A confident answer mentions AsbestosIQ, HMRC records, Companies House, the Employers’ Liability Tracing Office (ELTO) and the firm’s own archive of old insurer lookups.
6. Will you visit me at home?Most specialist firms will, free of charge, include a first interview at the kitchen table. If you live a long way from their office, ask if a senior lawyer — usually a partner, but doesn’t have to be — and not a paralegal will travel.
7. Who is my single point of contact, and what’s their direct number? You want a named person, not a switchboard.

Red flags:

• Anything that suggests the firm is a claims management company rather than a law firm. Ask for their SRA number and check it on the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s public register before you sign.
• A firm that wants to sign you up the same day, before you’ve read anything.
• A firm that won’t tell you the success fee percentage upfront.
• A firm that suggests you don’t need to mention work in the 1970s because ‘the scheme will pay anyway’. The 2014 scheme is a last resort for untraced employers, not a default route. The compensation differs.

If you’ve already started speaking to a firm and you want to switch, you can. Most firms will release a file to a new firm on request. Mention it to the new firm in your first call.