Finding the right solicitor for your specific needs can be tricky. It involves more than just finding a nice person. Your solicitor should have experience, skills, and knowledge that they can use to help and support you. Plus, a whole range of personal skills means they understand your emotions, and your frustrations, and communicate effectively with you.
But what steps should you consider finding the right solicitor?
1. First of all, consider yourself
The most important process is you. Whether you’ve been involved in a road traffic accident, you are buying a new home, or you want to create a prenup. Your first consideration is to understand your own needs and wants. What is your desired outcome of the process? What is most important to you when going through the process?
Then you need to consider yourself as a person. Are you confident that you know what the process entails e.g. have you moved house before? Or do you need guidance and more explanation? After this, consider your personality, are you more straightforward, with no fluff, or are you more emotional? All of these considerations of yourself as a person and your needs will help you to understand what kind of solicitor you require in order for you to be pleased with the service you receive.
2. Does your local solicitors offer the service you require
This point is very straightforward. Does your local solicitor actually offer the service you require? Not all solicitors offer every service that you would expect. Some will have specialties, and some will have huge departments and smaller departments. Most solicitors will offer an initial free consultation. In this, you can ask whether they can offer the service you need and meet your requirements. You may find that a solicitor will recommend another person, external to their company because they themselves know that they would be better suited to your needs.
3. Is location important to you?
For some people, visiting a solicitor in person is important. Getting to know someone, and having the time to have a face-to-face conversation with a solicitor. But for others, meetings over zoom, phone calls, and emails are perfectly fine. In fact, some people prefer this, as it removes any travel time & they can respond at 8pm at night when they have time.
4. Ask for recommendations
Now we all know that no two people’s experiences in the service-based industry are identical. In restaurants, at hairdressers, and at solicitors. Experiences differ based on personal circumstances, the situation, and personalities. However, your family and friends tend to you well and what you’re like. However, it’s important to consider whether your family and friends who’ve had an experience with a solicitor are similar to you. If they are in a similar financial situation, stage of life, and a similar personality, then your experience could be similar. But if this is not the case, it may be worth taking the recommendation and doing your own research.
5. Review Solicitors
Many of us have family and friends who have experience with solicitors, but it’s not a service that you require weekly or even monthly. Therefore finding someone who has relevant experience can be difficult. But websites like Review Solicitors display hundreds of reviews from real people, plus ratings for solicitors. This is a great tool for getting an understanding of specific solicitors, and the experiences other people have had dealing directly with them.
Contact us
If you’d like to arrange a free consultation to get to know how a member of the Beeston Shenton team can help you, then please get in touch. Email us at info@beestonshenton.co.uk or call us on 01782 662424.
