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How does the Good Lawyer Guide differ from other legal referral web sites?

  1. You do NOT have to pay to be included in the Good lawyer Guide. It is not a paid-for directory recommendation.

  2. You do not have to be a member of a group, association or trade body

  3. We identify suitable solicitors by work area and by location

  4. We offer free client referrals. But we do not charge you (or the clients) and there are no referral fees!

The key differentiator is that we are the only legal referral guide that lists local solicitors and law firms irrespective of whether they pay us.

We are genuinely independent, with a track-record of 20+ years producing guides to the legal profession

 

We provide free, independent, and unbiased advice on choosing a solicitor

In what order do ‘recommended firms’ get listed?

Law firms are listed in this order:

  1. Subscriber Firms (those firms are then listed in random order); and then

  2. Non-subscriber firms (also listed in random order).

Subscriber Firms are given priority over non-subscriber firms on the page.

In what order do ‘recommended individual solicitors’ get listed?

Individuals are listed in by ‘star-rating’ (eg all 5 star lawyers are listed together, before 4½ star lawyers). Within each star-rating group, individuals are listed this order:

  1. Individuals at Subscriber Firms; and then

  2. Individuals at non-subscriber firms.

Individuals at Subscriber Firms are given priority over those at non-subscriber firms within the same star-rating band.

Can we improve the ratings of our individual solicitors?

No. The ratings of all individual solicitors are calculated by our proprietary algorithm, based on publicly available information. As such they cannot be influenced directly by firms (and you cannot buy a better ‘star-rating). Click here for more details on how we arrive at our rankings. So you cannot improve a solicitor’s rating – but you can improve their listing position by becoming a Subscriber firm (eg a 5 star individual at a Subscriber Firm is listed above a 5 star individual at a non-Subscriber firm).

Download 'Guide to the benefits of becoming a Subscriber Firm'.

Can we edit the details of our firm?

Yes. The firm’s information can be edited by anyone at the firm who is registered as an administrator.

To register as an administrator for your firm's listings:

  1. Find your firm using the search function.
  2. In your firm's profile page, click on the "edit" button
  3. You will be asked to supply a valid e-mail address and a password

If you are a lawyer with an existing account set up with us, you can use that account to administrate the entire firm's profiles as well as your own. Simply fill in your login details where prompted on this screen.

If you are not yet registered, you can set up a brand new account with us which will be used for the administration of your firm's listings. Please supply us with a valid e-mail address where prompted onscreen (NB This needs to be your professional e-mail address - free, public e-mail addresses such as yahoo, hotmail, or gmail cannot be used).

We will then send you a verification email containing a link. Click on that link to access your firm's profile edit screen.

Alternatively, you can use our fax verification system to register your account with us. Simply follow the procedure as prompted below the email log in options.

Download ‘Easy Guide to registering your Firm’s Profile’

Once registered, you can edit basic information for your firm, such as which lawyers work for you, and essential contact details. But you cannot add any additional information unless the firm is a Subscriber Firm.

Download ‘Easy Guide to editing your firm’s profile’

Lawyers at Subscriber Firms are prioritised in our listings (within their star-rating tier) and are much more visible on the site and in our search results.

Download 'Guide to the benefits of becoming a Subscriber Firm'

Can we display additional information about the firm?

Yes. You can get increased marketing exposure by being a Subcriber Firm.

As a Subscriber Firm you will benefit from the following:

  • a full profile and description of the firm for prospective clients – other firms will simply be listed by name

  • composite listing of all your offices (ie all addresses. phone numbers etc) on every solicitor’s profile

  • listing of e-mail address on each solicitor’s profile (and, if required, other work contact e-mail addresses, and/or e-mail addresses of individual solicitors)

  • website link and a highly visible image of your Home Page on each solicitor’s profile

  • your firm’s logo displayed on your firm’s profile and on the profiles of all your individual solicitors

  • extended profiles of all individual solicitors at the firm

  • priority listing – appear above non-subscribing firms when local firms are listed

All this additional information will be seen by many thousands of potential clients. We offer a unique showcase for legal talent – an appropriate and professional method of marketing in the internet age. Click here for more information.

Download ‘Guide to the advantages of becoming a Subscriber Firm’

Can we edit the details of our solicitors?

Yes. Every solicitor has a profile page. That profile can be edited either by:

  • the individual solicitor concerned; or

  • an administrator for the entire firm.

To edit your individual profile, you will need to register with us:

  1. Find your listing using the search function.
  2. Click through to your profile page, then click on the "edit" button
  3. You will be asked to supply a valid e-mail address

NB This needs to be your professional e-mail address - free, public e-mail addresses such as yahoo, hotmail, or gmail cannot be used.

We will then send you a verification email containing a link. Click on that link to access your profile edit screen.

Download ‘Easy guide to editing your individual profile’

Please note, solicitors at non-subscribing firms can only list a limited amount of information on their profiles. Solicitors at Subscriber Firms can list extensive contact information and details of their practice, while the firms themselves can list their own practice-wide information. In addition solicitors at Subscriber Firms are prioritised in our search results (within their star-rating tiers). For more details see the PDF link below.

Download 'Guide to the benefits of becoming a Subscriber Firm'

As well as your own profile, you can edit the basic profiles of all the individual solicitors within your firm free of charge. Those basic profiles incorporate a photo, details of charging rates, and essential contact information. To obtain authorisation to edit the profiles of all individual solicitors in the firm, you will first need to register as an administrator for your firm's listings. Click here for more information on registering as a firm administrator and editing all your firm's listings.

How can we add a solicitor to our firm’s listing?

If a solicitor, who is already listed under another firm, has joined your firm then you can assign that solicitor to your listings. Click here for more details on editing your firm's listings.

Can we remove a solicitor from our firm's listing?

If a solicitor is no longer with your firm then you can remove that solicitor. Click here for more details on editing your firm's listings.

Do you cover 100% of solicitors?

No. We cover over 55,000 solicitors. But we do not include every solicitor in England and Wales. For instance:

  • we do not have publicly available data on all solicitors.

  • we do not include recently-qualified solicitors.

  • we do not include solicitors who work outside of private practice (ie who work for a company or public authority).

  • we do not include solicitors in the largest commercial firms (which only take instruction from large companies and institutions).

Can we buy banner advertising on the Good Lawyer Guide site?

Yes. We accept advertising from all appropriate sources (law firm and non-law firms). We do not, however, take display ads from individual solicitors (unless they are also firms – ie sole practitioners).

Ads can be precisely targeted to a particular market by selecting:

  1. postcode or location, and
  2. work area.

For instance, a personal injury firm might buy a banner ad that displays whenever a user searches for an ‘Accident claims’ or Medical accidents’ lawyer in any of a selected number of postcodes or town locations. A conveyancer might buy a banner ad that displays when a user searches for ‘Buying a house or flat’ in a specific town. You can select as many – or as few - work categories and postcodes, as is appropriate for your firm.

For more information on advertising (and prices) click here.

Can we use our Good Lawyer Guide reviews in our marketing materials?

You are free to use any recommendations made about your firm on this site in your own marketing materials.

The prominence and extensiveness of your coverage in the Good Lawyer Guide can be increased by becoming a Subscriber Firm.

For more details on how to subscribe, click here.

Download 'Guide to the benefits of becoming a Subscriber Firm'

One of our solicitors has received an email from Good Lawyer Guide with details of a potential client. Are you referring work to the firm?

All users of Good Lawyer Guide can ‘ask for a quote’. We will then email their details to several recommended solicitors. This is a free service - we do not charge the firm or the client.

If you have solicitors who do not want to receive emails from prospective clients then they can op-out – Either the individual solicitor can follow the procedure for posting information about themself (click here) and select the opt-out option, or you can obtain authorisation to edit the information about all the solicitors in your firm (click here) and select the opt-out option for those solicitors who do not wish to receive requests for quotes.

Who produces the Good Lawyer Guide?

The Good Lawyer Guide is produced by Legalease, under the leadership of John Pritchard. He is author of the Penguin Guide to the Law and is editor of all Legalease publications.

He is also general editor of Employment Law Journal, Property Law Journal, Family Law Journal, Personal Injury Law Journal, and Wills & Estates Law Journal. as well as writing the monthly Practical Lawyer (www.practicallawyer.co.uk).

Legalease has been collecting data on lawyers and law firms for over twenty years. See www.legalease.co.uk.

Why are you doing this?

There are many thousands of excellent solicitors in practice across England & Wales. But we believe that solicitors are frequently the butt of unfair and uninformed criticism.

The media traditionally focus on such issues as poor-quality work, or the misbehaviour of a few errant members of the profession. In effect, they prefer to make ‘news’ out of the failures of a few individuals. But we prefer to applaud the success of the many committed, high-quality individuals within the solicitors’ profession. Thus, the whole thrust of our approach is to ‘praise the praiseworthy’, rather than ‘chastise the weak’.

Our mission is simple. We want to give a starting point to the person who asks a friend: ‘I have a legal problem. Do you know a solicitor I can use’?

Our reviews are designed as a starting point for suggesting which solicitors, in which localities, might be contacted. But, we do not say which is ‘the best’ and nor do we say which is ‘the worst’.

Using our ratings responsibly.

Our review system is subjective. Our ratings are an evaluative assessment, using our own judgement. We take core data and then weight that data based on our own subjective opinions regarding the relative importance of various attributes, such as professional experience and professional history. We do not disclose how an attribute is scored or how it is weighed in comparison with other attributes but we apply the same criteria and weighting equally to all the solicitors we rate (ie everyone is treated the same).

Anyone looking at this site – whether a potential client or a lawyer - should appreciate that any system designed to rate the professional abilities of solicitors will incorporate the expertise and reflect the subjective opinions of the reviewers (ie this website). That being so, our ratings/opinions should not be misconstrued as statements of actual fact.

Another reviewer looking at the same underlying data could come up with vastly different reviews from ours (depending on their subjective views of what is relevant and what is important). For example, we might look at how long a solicitor has been qualified and then assign that a value which is then crunched with the values assigned to the solicitor’s professional history, qualifications etc. The product of this calculation is a number between one and ten. But any figure or score we allocate is figurative: it represents in an abstracted form a collection of attributes and the weight that we have subjectively assigned to them. Such a score or review is not a statement of fact. For instance, a particular solicitor might take issue with his or her review score because he or she is a partner and therefore thinks he or she should be rated higher than someone who is not a partner; but that agitated solicitor should realise that we are not stating a fact, merely a subjective opinion based on our application of what we regard as relevant criteria. Our rating means no more and no less than that.

Plus there may be other relevant data that the rating does not consider. For instance, another reviewer might place importance on the level of University degree (or the University attended), which is something we attach no significance to.

In addition, when looking at our review, it is important to remember there are many other – and more important – factors that a potential client should take into account when choosing a lawyer (eg personal empathy with the individual lawyer; cost; location; specialist expertise; language …and so on). In that mix, reviews and ratings of the sort that appear on this website are only a small ingredient.

These reviews are intended to applaud and acknowledge solicitors who have attained a level of professional expertise that – by our criteria and ranking system – deserves appropriate recognition. Conversely, if a solicitor has a review that is lower than they might think is appropriate, it is not the case that we are disparaging that solicitor or their professional expertise. It is just that, on our standard criteria (with our standard weighting) that individual solicitor does not get as many ‘stars’ as some others. It does not mean that the solicitor is ‘bad’, ‘incompetent’, ‘to be avoided’ or is ‘not as good’ as someone. To draw such an implication is to give our subjective ratings an objective significance that they do not merit (or purport to possess).

Putting it simply, there is no objective standard by which anyone can measure a solicitor's abilities with certitude. Reviews are, by their very nature, subjective and debatable. Although a rating or review (such as ours) may rely in part on objectively verifiable data, the interpretation of that data is ultimately a subjective assessment by us, not an objectively verifiable fact.