I'm on legal aid,represented by a local solicitor who quite frankly has not come up to expectation.
A specialist solicitor has been recommended,and I'm seeing him on friday.
I have been warned that the origional solicitor has the right to refuse to let me go.
I've been assigned a barrister,and have been to the court twice,but no trial date has been set.
Any ideas please.

It seems unlikely that your local solicitor will object to the transfer to a specialist solicitor who will be better able to represent you, given his greater experience.

Your new solicitor will probably want to use a barrister that he knows and has worked with before, so the existing counsel may get replaced.

perhaps you are misunderstanding the situation.

If you have lost faith in your solicitor he can no longer represent you and a judge wouldn't allow him to if he knew that's how you felt.

However he would be able to keep papers that he has prepared on your behalf-not legal papers applying to you..court papers and such, as solicitors deem that to be their copyright. Usually they pass them on though but charge hefty photocopying fees .

You can sack your solicitor at any time and mickeyone is right-they all have barristers they tend to work with who they feel may feel confident about.

Go with the one you feel best about.it's your life !

You must change if you are not happy.

Sad to say Legal Aid jobs seem to be done badly by many solicitors.

If you think you need a specialist then probably you do.

Dont wait until it is too late. At the moment with a conviction rate of less than 5% in most cases the CPS is likely to quit any cases which have no evidence because of the cost. Challenge them every step of the way to produce hard evidence because in many cases they have none. The police are "collecting" stats for their pay bonuses. They dont care what happens once they have handed it over to the CPS - they already have their "box ticked" in your case if you have been charged.

The whole system has broken down ( much like the MPs expenses ) Only an election will sort this all out.

Well not quite as you guys put it.Was on the phone to Warwick crown,and they said it would be hard to change if they objected.
That said I've now spoken to my old solicitors and while they're not happy they won't stand in my way;)