Navigating the legal landscape can be overwhelming, whether you are an individual in search of personal legal advice or a company in need of comprehensive legal support. The journey to hire a lawyer or solicitor entails a variety of factors that vary markedly depending on whether you are a private individual, an SME (Small to Medium Sized Entity) or a larger corporate entity. Speaking from personal experience, even with 15 years in the legal field, finding the right legal support has posed its own set of challenges. Having navigated these waters both personally and professionally, I believe I can offer a well-rounded perspective on the critical considerations involved in this process. This article explores these differences and provides a checklist to help guide you before engaging a solicitor.

Hiring a Lawyer as a Member of the Public

When individuals hire a lawyer, it is typically for specific issues such as estate planning, family law matters, property transactions, or personal disputes. The focus is often on finding a solicitor who is accessible, affordable, empathetic, and capable of providing personalised legal advice tailored to one’s personal circumstances. While many might go down to their local solicitor’s office on the high street, that is not always the best path to hiring the right solicitor for your needs.

Resources that can Help to Find a Lawyer

One great resource is the Law Society’s ‘Find a Solicitor’ app where you can search over 190,000 legal professionals. It is an incredibly useful tool that can help you to focus on an area of practice such as ‘Family’ and select a secondary category such as ‘Dispute Resolution’.

You can further narrow your search to find law firms near me, which can be useful if you want to have direct contact with your potential legal advocate.

Similarly, the SRA (Solicitors Regulation Authority) has a dedicated page ‘For the public’ with the ability to search firms and check their regulatory record. The SRA  offers lots of helpful guides on choosing a solicitor and instructing a solicitor which go into much more depth that I can in this article.

Linkedin can also be a useful tool; the ability to find individual lawyers that specialise in a certain field can actually be a way to find legal professionals that you are more closely connected enabling you to get recommendations from your own network.

Of course, there are always search engines to fall back on like Google and Bing that offer excellent indexing based on your search terms. Check the end of this article for some of the best search terms you can use for finding a solicitor.

Key Considerations for Hiring a Solicitor

Expertise in Relevant Law

Individuals should look for solicitors who specialise in the area relevant to their needs, such as family law or residential conveyancing.

While many firms can claim multiple areas of expertise, it can be useful to check a potential law firm with directories like Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500. Here you can view law firm profiles and check for real expertise in the given specialism.

While it is likely that choosing a Tier 1 firm might be out of reach for many individuals, there are examples of very highly ranked firms that are still affordable.

Cost

Understanding fee structures is crucial, as individuals often pay out of pocket. Solicitors might offer services at a fixed rate, hourly rate, or on a contingency (no win, no fee) basis, depending on the matter.

Hiring a Lawyer as a Company

For businesses, the stakes and complexity of legal services can be substantially higher. Companies may require ongoing legal counsel to navigate corporate law, compliance issues, mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property rights, property law matters and many other commercial law needs.

Key Considerations

Structure of Law Firms

Companies might engage with larger law firms that offer a wide range of legal services and expertise and who boast a structure that supports complex legal challenges across various jurisdictions.

Flexible Legal Services

Businesses often need lawyers who can provide flexible legal services — from temporary in-house counsels to specialised legal consultants to armies of junior lawyers to support with matters and address fluctuating demands. Accutrainee is one of a few truly independent flexible legal service providers that offers legal support in this way to companies.

Long-term Relationships

Companies are more likely to benefit from establishing long-term relationships with law firms that understand their business deeply.

Checklist: What to Consider Before Engaging a Solicitor

This checklist mainly applies to individuals and SMEs (small to medium sized enterprises) that need to engage the help of a lawyer. Generally large businesses have sophisticated procurement channels for engaging legal support.

Whether you’re looking to hire a solicitor for personal reasons or business purposes, consider the following steps to ensure you make an informed decision:

Define Your Needs: Clearly understand why you need legal assistance and what you expect to achieve from the engagement.

Experience and Specialisation: Ensure the solicitor or law firm has a proven track record in the specific area of law relevant to your needs.

Reputation: Check the solicitor’s or law firm’s reputation through reviews, testimonials, and possibly even rankings in legal directories.

Cost Structure: Discuss the fee arrangement upfront to avoid any surprises. This might include fixed fees, hourly rates, retainer fees, or contingency fees.

Communication: Choose a solicitor who communicates clearly and frequently. Make sure you are comfortable with their style and approach.

Initial Consultation: Most solicitors offer a free or low-cost initial consultation. Use this opportunity to gauge whether they are the right fit for you.

Terms of Engagement: Before formally hiring a solicitor, review the terms of engagement which should outline the services to be provided, the fees, and other conditions of the service. As a member of the public with no legal knowledge, you should be given terms of business in a format you can understand in simple and plain English. If they have too much jargon or clauses that simply don’t make sense to you, ask the firm to go through them with you, ensuring they provide a clear explanation of what each term means.

Insurance and Regulation: Verify that the solicitor has the necessary qualifications and insurance to provide legal services. This protects you against potential professional negligence.

Exit Strategy: Understand the terms under which you or the solicitor can terminate the engagement if necessary.

By following this checklist, you can approach hiring a lawyer with a well-informed perspective, ensuring that you choose the right legal support tailored to your specific needs.

Search engine terms for finding a Solicitor

Having checked search engines for key word searching, I have made a handy list of the most common search terms that produced good results, depending on your specific needs:

• Find a solicitor near me
• Find a solicitor with insert ‘specialism’
• Lawyer for hire
• Hiring lawyers
• Flexible legal services
• Lawyer hire
• Hire a solicitor
• Hire a lawyer
• ‘Specialism’ and ‘Solicitor’ Example ‘Construction Disputes Solicitor’

I hope this guide has been useful in helping you to find the right legal support you need in the UK.

If you have any specific questions or comments feel free to get in touch with Accutrainee here: Contact Accutrainee

About the Author:

Kevin has over 20 years’ experience in operations, talent attraction and selection, most of which was spent focusing on the legal industry. Kevin has a wealth of experience in recruitment with key strengths in optimising operations, curating top-tier talent and gaining a deep understanding of the legal industry dynamics.