Finding Legal Help When Things Go Wrong
Hopefully you'll have seen the dozens of articles on our site telling you to be wary of the Legal Assistance addons many insurers stick on your policy as already having opted into rather than asking you if you want to opt in like the pretty much do for everything else such as breakdown cover or a courtesy car. It may sound like a good idea at the time when you see costs of a couple dozen pounds in order to secure the services of a solicitor if you need one. Considering solicitors cost hundreds of pounds per hour this sounds like a great deal. However remember that insurers are already making much of a loss on car insurance policies and are not really going to give away more stuff if they can help it. For most car insurance related matters, solicitors work for free. In other words, all that no win no fee and 100% compensation stuff you see on the adverts. In other words, you're paying the insurer for a service that is free and the majority of people don't bother to use their insurance appointed solicitor when something goes wrong anyway because it feels like a conflict of interests:
Please check out the new US Law Firm Reviews section on our sister site.
Law (aka All Law Ltd) Solicitors in Preston: So how can you discern one firm from another?
As an example we're going to cover a firm called Law based in Preston. Currently, we are helping clients with their Wills, Probate, Divorce and Conveyancing needs."< div>
One of the best independent resources we a...
WYM Legal Ltd Conveyancing Solicitors in Watford: However, when it comes to law firms we always recommend people read the actual reviews for context rather than flicking through only star ratings.
So what things can be useful? First it should be noted that not all firms stating they deal with Property matters are a...
Woodstock Legal Services Ltd - Solicitors Law Practice in Poole: We've seen lawyers rated 5 stars for their great new menu and a divorce specialist given 1 star for refusing to take a criminal defence case.
This is important to note because this firm handles conveyancing which has been the subject of https: www.thetimes.co.uk stati...
Wolf Law Solicitors Ltd in Wirral: Sometimes just because an official-looking email came through saying to quickly change the bank details the deposit goes into. That's because many legal practices handle conveyancing property matters which are always frustrating and take too long. Wolf Law don't make any suc...
Wilford Smith Solicitors in Sheffield (Meadowhall) & Rotherham - WS Strategic Ltd: They are a good example to use in order to provide insights and help into ways people can research law firms and ensure they get one that matches what they are looking for. For example: one of the largest Conveyancing firms in the UK (My Home Move) have a current rating of...
Wildcat Law Ltd Solicitors in London & Southampton: So what can?
class="infoquote "When reviewing the performance of a firm or department we use various criteria; our focus is on the bench strength of the team"< div>
That quote is from the website of https: www.legal500.com " The Legal 500< a> who review ten...
WH Law Ltd - Immigration Solicitors in Woking: People are just often far less inclined to publicly discuss their divorce, bankruptcy, or brain injuries on comment boards than they about the pizza they had yesterday. It may be a phrase we dislike resorting to, but it fits. Whilst many provide testimonials on their website...
Waterstone Partnership Solicitors Ltd in Bradford: Because they also provide the qualification dates and areas of law focused on by each solicitor. This is all the more important if you are looking for help with a conveyancing matter because conveyance clients https: monzo.com blog we-sent-our-house-deposit-to-a-fraudster-...
Walker Foster Ltd Solicitors in Skipton, Barnoldswick, Silsden, Settle, Ilkley, Northallerton & Harrogate: You can't see reviews of the company as a whole any more.
class="infoquote "extremely happy with the efficient and excellent service"
"We appreciated her prompt replies to any of our queries"
"very kind, supportive and efficient"
"kept up to date at all stages o...
UVS Law Immigration & Visa Solicitor in Burton-on-Trent & London: Most firms will make claims about being 'exceptional' or 'committed' (certainly none will be claiming the opposite) but the thing to notice is that the firm specialises in immigration matters - i.e. These include work visas, business visas, study visas, family visas, touri...
TWB Probate Solicitors Ltd - Estate Planning, Wills & Probate in London: However, considering the changes governments can make and even the huge difference between how life insurance policies can be paid out and taxed - at the very least it may be an idea to check with someone to ask whether they think you might need a more in depth discussion ...
The Law Partnership Ltd - Solicitors in Coventry: So a conveyancing solicitor with a high rating is actually a rarity.
class="infoquote "We strive to resolve legal matters in a non-confrontational way – we prefer to resolve disputes outside of the courts through mediation and arbitration."< div>
A quick not...
Thomas and Thomas Solicitors Ltd in Maesteg, Bridgend & Port Talbot: So for a firm to have consistent 4+ star ratings in the real estate industry is unusual. But for their claim of being 'friendly and professional' most people will turn to prior client comments for evidence of that.
class="infoquote "Whether you are looking for legal...
Stephanie Heijdra - The Lady Barrister & Clerksroom Chambers in London: Unfortunately with the direct access scheme being so new it may not be something you've heard of yet and hopefully more information on each barrister will become available as the scheme and awareness grows. This is despite her working in the industry since at least 2014 ac...
Summerfield Browne Solicitors in London, Birmingham, Cambridge, Oxford, Market Harborough & Leicester: We've been hoping that for many years and it's getting there . We've been working in the legal industry for over 20 years so have met plenty on the way. When Covid hit many companies across all industries realised they can do the job just as easily from their own home o...
Sternberg Reed LLP Solicitors with Offices in Romford, Barking & Grays: Neither of the variants such as www.sternbergreed.co.uk get you to the correct place though and we spotted a specialist site for the firm's family law department at www.srfamilylawsolicitors.co.uk
Keeping an eye out to make sure you know where you are at all times is b...
Solidaire Solicitors - Solidaire Law Ltd in Milton Keynes: Make sure any firm you are thinking of using has https: www.sra.org.uk " an SRA number< a> listed on their site. But if we entered "solidaire luton" the correct firm showed up because Google still have the firm registered to their old address. Most solicitors within Engla...
Sarah Rostamlou-Andrews Law - Landlord / Tenant Eviction Dispute Solicitor in Southport, Lancashire:
class="infoquote "I specialise solely in residential Landlord and Tenant law, acting for Landlords. As a law professional targeting business clients, there are various ways of getting in touch with Sarah such as https: www.linkedin.com in sarah-rostamlou-andrews-014...
PCS Legal Ltd Conveyancing Solicitors in Basildon, Ongar, Wickford, London, Rayleigh &Harlow:
class="infoquote "We provide a fast and efficient service which at the onset includes a free, no obligation quotation, containing details of our fixed rate charges to ensure there are no hidden costs."< div>
A note on navigation needs to be made along with a s...
Dispute Resolver Consultancy - Mediation & Alternative Dispute Resolution ADR in London:
class="infoquote "Our secondary specialisation is contract writing drafting, contract review, contract analysis, document review, and election observer."< div>. One such firm is the Dispute Resolver Consultancy. But here is a explanatory snippet from the https: www....
Oakwood Solicitors Ltd & Oakwood Property Solicitors in Leeds: Some firms will try to intimate experience with tag lines about having 'been in business for over forty years' or even ancient founding dates such as 'established in 1891'.
Oakwood clearly have a wide range of experience covering almost the last five decades. If you...
NJS Law in Blackburn: You may therefore see some cached pages for a while with the old information if you have been to our site before.
A quick note on navigation. Unfortunately there are a limited number of colours, images, and ways to express professionals doing a professional job.
...
SG Murphy & Co Ltd - Solicitors in Newtownabbey, Belfast: At this point if you've been searching for legal services for a few hours already you may be starting to think that they all sound the same. But it often just takes a little bit of standing back and reasoning. "< div> . As we've pointed out in other articles, firms that ar...
MPG Quantity Surveyors Ltd in London - Chartered Surveyors for Construction Dispute Arbitration: The site is HTTPS secure for submitting your personal details via their online form. However, it should be pointed out that in the commercial sector it's not just Mr Anon or Ms Smith leaving such reviews. MPGQS lists comments from previous and current clients on their webs...
MJV & Co Solicitors Ltd - Law Firm in Thornton-Cleveleys, Blackpool:
The question of course is whether this can result in a firm being better when it comes to handling clients and cases or if it has no effect at all. It wasn't until we researched MJV Solicitors that we realised there was a once-hugely-popular phrase now seemingly miss...
McCarthy + Co LLP Solicitors in Dublin, Cork & Clonakilty: This is especially important since the firm handles property matters. For example if you type 'mccarthy and co in clonakilty' you will see data for that office. They are not the be-all and end-all of important things to check. But searches for variations of the firm's name...
Marsden Rawsthorn Solicitors Ltd in Preston & Chorley: But since there won't be any solicitors claiming to be backward-thinking or that they offer the wrong type of fees - it may not help convince you to use them instead of someone else. The website of The Law Society of England & Wales offers a wealth of information about t...
Mark Croft Driving Offence Solicitor in Derby: You may see many references to 'time' on law firm's sites. This statement is clear as it means Mark Croft himself has 28 years of experience .
class="infoquote "I recently obtained a discontinuance of a road traffic case on behalf of a certain Insurance Company, that...
Lyons Solicitors - Law Firm in Kingswood, Westbury-on-Trym & Chew Magna (Bristol): You can also check the cases each handles.
Worse than this are the firms that claim ancient founding dates such as 'established in 1881'. Lyons makes no such claim. A firm that deals only with one case type such as Criminal Law is definitely a specialist firm. That m...
LS Legal Solicitors Ltd: These days you can find a solicitor specialising in anything from Criminal Law to Housing Disrepair. So always make sure you're on the correct site and speaking to someone you know at the firm. That's a considerable mix of seasoned heads with fresh eyes. We did notice much ...
UK Divorce Coaches | Things to consider when seeking divorce coaching services in the UK: Divorces can tear apart entire family setups. < li>
QualitySolicitors Large & Gibson - Law Firm in Southsea, Portsmouth: class="infoquote "QualitySolicitors is the largest network of law firms in the UK, with local law firms spanning the whole of England and Wales and customer service at the heart of everything we do. Obviously they will not have a 120-year-old solicitor on staff - so ...
Kee Solicitors Ltd in Glasgow & Aberdeen: It also seems to show a bit more faith in their services , as they are not in control of all the reviews Trustpilot shows about them. But the claims are not unique. The property conveyancing market has been plagued for years by scammers https: www.thisismoney.co.uk money ...
Horsley Law Solicitors in Stafford aka Horsley Holdings Ltd: Pay special attention if the firm you're looking into handles property matters because they are often targeting by fraudsters and https: www.ncsc.gov.uk collection phishing-scams" phishing scams< a>. . That's more important than you might think as not all websites that t...
Heritage Park Family Law Ltd - Barrister Chambers in Ampthill, Bedford: In the statement above this firm states 'specialists in family law since 1994' . The most common port of call is The Law Society of England & Wales' website. You sometimes need to search for the firm name and city they are in to see that information pop up - e.g. Today we'r...
HCR Legal LLP Solicitors Law Firm incl Medical Accident Group in Worcester, Birmingham & Hereford: Both sites are HTTPS secure for submitting your personal details in their contact form. We highly recommend reading through actual comments left rather than simply flicking through star ratings. As you can see they are generally positive. class="infoquote "We put...
Harrison's Solicitors - Conveyancing in Reading, Caversham & Woodley: This way you can check whether the firm does have genuine 'qualified' staff. You are not walking into the actual office and talking with the staff. That includes any alternate business names (we'll come back to that), contact details, areas of law covered, and most im...
Guardian Law Ltd - Employment & HR Lawyers in Nottingham: Almost obsessed. That's because while many people are very happy to post about the great pizza or hotel stay, they are less inclined to publicly discuss their messy divorce, bankruptcy, or criminal convictions. This is all very important to consider though because t...
Garden Stirling Burnet Solicitors Ltd in Haddington, Edinburgh, Dunbar, North Berwick & Tranent: Their claim of 30 years' experience though may sound small https: find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk company SC507024 officers" in comparison< a> to some firms claiming decades and even centuries of experience on their websites. class="infoquote "O...
Goldsmith Bowers Debt Recovery & Litigation Solicitors in Bradford: So don't dismiss such offers lightly. Always remember though that ampersands cannot be in web addresses (e.g. But we have no hesitation in stating a firm with a specialist business department or a fully specialist firm like Goldsmith Bowers are far more likely to be able...
Girlings Solicitors LLP & Girlings Personal Injury Claims Ltd in Sandwich, Ashford & Canterbury: If you're not sure, we highly recommend using the amazing user-side data provided by the Law Society of England & Wales. But most importantly they list the areas of law covered and qualification dates of each solicitor registered with them. As mentioned there are two sites...
Frei Solicitors Ltd - Luxury Asset Law Firm in London: We enjoy working with our clients, and strive to build a lasting relationship."< div> A quick note on navigation. This can be an entire firm that specialises in a certain case type, or a wider practice that has specialists for a few different case types on their staff....
Foster & Coleman Ltd Solicitors in Bromley, Greater London: The official website for this firm is www.fosterandcoleman.com and currently www.fosterandcoleman.co.uk does not redirect you. There are several similarly named firms such as 'foster & foster' and 'foster law' that popped up while we were searching. The site is https secure...
Farah Family Law Solicitors in Birmingham: Like many perfectly good words in the English language, the word "specialist" has been ruined by marketing firms. The client will therefore genuinely be benefiting from specialist expertise. A Jack of all trades. But on this occasion the full quote "master of none, though of...
Eve Lake Conveyancing & Legal Services in Hope Valley: There are a lot of terms to contend with when searching for help with legal matters. class="infoquote "Reliable Conveyancing & Legal Services based in the Hope Valley, Derbyshire. For today's article we will be talking about Conveyancers who are regulated by th...
England & Derbyshire LLP Solicitors in Guildford and Woking, Surrey: But to be sure a website is not misleading you with clever wording, it's best to check for an SRA number. These days, for many services, you don't even need to go to a typical high street solicitor. class="infoquote "Our clients can be confident that we will provid...
Nero Legal Solicitors Conveyancing Law Firm in Glasgow, Scotland:
If you've spent the day looking for a law firm to help you with any legal matter, the first thing you'll probably have noticed is just how similar (or sometimes identical) some firm's websites can look. It seems that every firm claims to be "leading" in one thing or...
EMD Law LLP Solicitors in Staplehurst & St Leonards-on-Sea: Some people have https: www.telegraph.co.uk money katie-investigates thought-did-everything-right-100k-house-deposit-transferred " handed their entire house deposit< a> into a fraudster's bank account after receiving an official-looking email saying the payment details ha...
EDC Lord & Co Solicitors in Southall: 'edc lord and co solicitors southall'.
class="infoquote "EDC Lord takes its name from our founder Edwin David Charles Lord who began his legal practice in 1919"< div>
First and foremost, the website is easy to navigate, with a clear and concise layout that mak...
Eatons Solicitors in Bradford, Bingley, Yeadon & Leeds West Yorkshire: It's common for some of the largest, most popular conveyancing firms in the country to have 2 or 3 star average ratings. We've been working with law firms for over 20 years and rarely have we seen such a collection of experience within one firm. That was even before Covid ...
Drummond Miller LLP Solicitors in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bathgate, Musselburgh, Dalkeith & East Kilbride: The official website follows the firm's name so www.drummondmiller.co.uk as the firm is not 'Drummond & Miller' as we've seen some people searching for on here. For example, www.drummond&miller.co.uk could not exist, it would be www.drummondandmiller.co.uk
The site is...
Defank Solicitors in London:
class="infoquote "Our firm is proud to serve the London community and beyond, delivering exceptional legal solutions"< div>
A quick note on navigation. We have seen notes about a Defank Solicitor in Croydon but that seems to be the same firm as this one based sl...
CWJ Solicitors & Notaries - Clarkson Wright & Jakes Ltd in Orpington, Kent: Solicitor Emily Carey at the firm is listed as having qualified in 1989, Alison Hall in 1994, Keith Doherty in 2004, Josephine Bowman in 2013, plus many others right up to the relatively new Sophie Murray who joined the profession in 2020.
class="infoquote "We support...
Cullimore Dutton Solicitors Ltd - Conveyancing & Legal Services in Chester: The majority are positive which is actually surprising for a Conveyancing firm.
class="infoquote "Every day we change the lives of our Clients, Colleagues & Community through expert Legal and Financial solutions."< div>
That looks like a big claim listed on th...
Crockett & Co Family Law Solicitors in Leeds: But beyond simply specialising, the other thing most people want in their legal representative is experience. For example the founding solicitor at https: solicitors.lawsociety.org.uk organisation people 468290 crocketts-limited?Solicitors=True" at Crocketts< a>, Helen Cr...
Cook Legal Ltd Law Firm in Wirral, Merseyside:
Of course since the birth of the internet, anyone under the age of 30 will have no clue what that feels like.
A quick note on navigation. Unlike the Scottish and Irish law societies, the Law Society of England & Wales provide a great user-side database including...
Calio Claims Ltd - Personal Injury in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth & Dundee: Being aware of what you're typing and what site you're on is important because of the huge amount of scams such as https: www.ncsc.gov.uk guidance phishing" phishing< a> on the web.. That's probably why only 8% of people clicked that they trusted company provided testimon...
Buchanan & Co Ltd Solicitors in Staveley, Chesterfield, Kiveton Park & Sheffield: it sounds great but doesn't actually provide you any information to help you separate them from any other firm. Be careful though as some firms use sneaky marketing jargon to make you think they have far more experience than they do. (Quite often not even from their own cl...
Brodies LLP Solicitors in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh & Inverness Scotland: Certainly Brodies https: brodies.com expertise businesses-and-organisations case-studies " caters for this need< a>. It's only there you get to hear both sides. You need to find the things that set firms apart from each other, not what just sounds good on a webpage next t...
Bridge McFarland LLP - Solicitors in Grimsby, Hull, Lincoln, Louth, and Market Rasen: The negative ones all seemed to relate to delays in a house purchase.
There are many resources available to you though and many things you might not have considered when checking a legal professional's website. Don't be afraid to call the official number you already ha...
Brian Barr Solicitors Ltd Chronic Pain & Fibromyalgia Compensation in Manchester: Certainly you can't get a balanced range of comments as no firm we've seen ever posts their negative feedback on their website alongside the positive.
class="infoquote "Specialists in serious, catastrophic and brain injury claims"< div>
For the website of Brian...
Scotland Injury Solicitors from Baker Hardman Ltd in Glasgow: So we always recommend reading through comments when looking up a firm rather than simply flicking through star ratings.
Both of the firms official sites are HTTPS secure for submitting your details in their contact form. Our 1to1Legal website never asks you for y...
Backhouse Solicitors in Chelmsford, Essex:
class="infoquote "Backhouse Solicitors is a modern and forward thinking solicitors firm offering high levels of expertise and service to individuals, businesses and their owners."< div>
Today we're obviously reviewing Backhouse Solicitors. So when you see offers...
Amy King Legal - Personal Injury & Litigation Solicitor in Gillingham, Kent: Groups of them together are weirder. There is no hard and fast rule. The internet allows you to find and use a Dover based law practice for your Newcastle injury claim. It's a good sentiment. Watch out for firms that use marketing jargon. and have taken countless cases to C...
ACSL Solicitors Ltd in Liverpool:
class="infoquote "We are transparent about our prices – they're all listed here on the website."< div>
These sorts of statements are not always placed front and centre, but they are the type of thing to watch for. So if anyone knows about law firm's websites,...
A City Law Firm Ltd in London: Surprisingly dispite the generic words in the name, when we typed 'a city law firm' into sites we were shown reviews and results for the correct firm. Today's article also focuses on things you can do to research a firm you're thinking of using.
class="infoquote "Our ...
Two Harcourt Buildings Chambers - 2HB Barristers in London: Two Harcourt Buildings may be a setup you're not familiar with because prior to recent changes in how the public can access legal help, you would have had to pay a solicitor just to get introduced to a barrister that can actually represent you in court. If you search the u...