Finding a Suitable Solicitor
Legal issues are often complicated to understand and so it is usually best to employ the services of a solicitor when getting into any sort of legal agreement or dispute.
There are many solicitors around but how do you decide which one to go with?
It will help if you know what sort of solicitor you need - a generalist or a specialist. Specialists are very knowledgeable in their chosen area of expertise and for this reason they are very useful to have on your side if you are in need of specific legal advice. You will find that solicitors often have a few chosen specialisms such as Wills and Probate, Court of Protection and Tax.
The first thing that you might do to go about finding a suitable solicitor is to ask friends and family if they can recommend anyone. This is useful because if they do suggest anyone, the suggestion will be coming from a reliable source and so the solicitor is more likely to be an ideal match for you.
If you can’t get a personal recommendation then you will need to find a solicitor yourself. The easiest place to start is on the computer. Look up solicitors in your area by searching for something like ‘solicitors Salisbury’ or ‘solicitors Southampton’. You will find that there are quite a few that are listed just on the first page of results. Anything listed under ‘ads’ is a paid listing. Sometimes people trust these less because a company is paying their way to be in the top results rather than using the organic method where (in very simple terms) links from other websites act as an endorsement for a site and help get it to the first page.
If you are after a specialist solicitor, try including that in your search engine query, e.g. ‘residential conveyancing Salisbury.’ This will show solicitors that cover the precise area of law that you want.
When you have found a few firms on the web, try and find testimonials and feedback. If you see some good things about all of them, you will need to narrow down which solicitor you are going to use. This can be done by looking at where they are located (although it will be worth your while travelling a little further to get to a better solicitor than just sticking with the closest one). You can also phone a few of your shortlisted solicitors and see if they impress you on the phone. Don’t be worried about asking what experience they have and what the outcome has been for them for similar cases.
You can always go to the website of The Law Society and use their lookup facility. They have information on you can expect, guides to common legal problems, and what to do if things go wrong. All listed solicitors in their ‘Find a Solicitor’ lookup will hold a license to practise from the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
If you find a good firm of solicitors, the chances are that you will build up a useful relationship with them and if you need legal advice again you already have a good solicitor to turn to.