Divorce - Legal Aid vs Borrowing Money for Private Solicitor

Going through divorce from abusive partner, we have kids, ex earns big salary. I am the SAHW with no meaningful income and a bit of savings. Still living in same home for now. Ex abandoned mediation and is lawyered up!

Ex wants courts/solicitors to handle everything - he can easily afford it and knows I cannot.

My best friend suggested legal aid as abuse and no income, or borrow (never borrowed in my life) / reach quick agreement (he knows I have little money) / find a solicitor who will be happy to be paid at the end from financial split (do any exist?!?). Have spoke to a solicitor who estimated over £4k just to try and reach an out of court settlement on finances - that would swallow almost all my savings.

But I have heard bad things about legal aid solicitors - both in being newly qualified at best, and spending little time on cases. I will only get one go at this and worry by trying to penny-pinch on legal support I am jeopardising my / kids future.

Has anyone used a legal aid solicitor for family matters, and if so what was your experience?

I am so overwhelmed!

Before you can get legal aid, first you would need to prove that there was abuse. There does tend to be quite a large gap between what the courts would consider abuse and what friends, relatives and a certain well known women's charity would consider abuse however. This does mean you would be taking a risk unless the abuse is flagrant and easy to prove (if it's of the "he's not giving me enough money to live on post separation" variety then that's less likely to be successful unless it is extreme). The problem is that once you start down the path of abuse allegations it will have to go to court for a fact finding unless he admitted the abuse and the option for mediation or an out of court settlement will pass. So you'll be committed to court with no guarantee that you are going to get legal aid (and his solicitor will fight pretty hard to try and ensure that you don't).

Also, you should note that legal aid would be a loan in your case, recoverable from your share of the assets upon settlement.