Cooks Solicitors: Info
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Cooks Solicitors in Newcastle under Lyme & Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire: Review
As in the previous article, Cooks Solicitors are also a trading name of Young and Co Solicitors Ltd. Again though, whilst many solicitors use different trading names to highlight specific case types out of the same office - this one relates to a completely individual office location within the Young & Co group.
Whilst that might mean you'll need slightly more concentration to make sure your researching information about the actual office rather than the group as a whole - most of the time everyone else has not bothered to do the same. Therefore there will likely be reviews, information, and links for each branding within the group dotted about on the same pages.
This may not seem like an important sentence to most regular clients looking for a solicitor. But it stands out to us. We've been writing articles on and working with law firms for over twenty years now, and one trend we dislike intensely are the ancient establishment claims. For example those firms stating 'founded in 1881' or even older dates. They are certainly meaningless, but also often completely tenuous too. Such as the firm that claimed a '150 year history' in an area simply because they moved into the building an older legal practice originally owned.
So to see a simple claim based on the actual experience levels of the staff within a firm, displays a level of honesty and clarity that perhaps the majority of people will overlook. No really, firms claiming they are three hundred years old as if that gives them some sort of bonus experience above other firms really winds us up. You can get a 1-year newbie lawyer from a three hundred year old firm or a 40-year guru lawyer from a one year old firm. The experience levels of the solicitor running your case is the most crucial number out of the two.
We couldn't find a staff profile section on the Cooks Solicitors website at the time of writing. But if you would like to look up the individual experience and expertise of a solicitor within any firm, you can often get the information at the local law society website. Fortunately all of Young and Co's offices are registered with The Law Society of England & Wales which is an excellent resource with a wealth of user side data. All trading names, office locations, languages spoken, case types handled, solicitors' qualification dates, and more are usually available.
Of course, the first point of call for most people are the prior customer reviews when they are checking out any service provider. Whilst many firms provide testimonials on their websites, these are not normally given much attention. We agree that it is always better to see both the positive and negative comments. So how are Cooks Solicitors looking on the independent boards?
"always kept me updated on what was going on and explained things"
"i used nigel cook recentley [sic] ... in a personal injury claim, professional and a top notch guy"
"My solicitor was always polite and I think she deserves a lot of credit."
Those are some snippets from comments left on third party forums such as Google, Facebook, Trustpilot, Yell.com, etc. On the whole they are very positive but there were some negative comments as well. When it comes to law firms though, we absolutely recommend that you read through the reviews and ignore any overall average star ratings. That's because when it comes to any legal practice handling property/conveyancing matters - it's actually quite normal for them to have a poor rating.
The largest conveyancy provider in the UK has over 1500 reviews on Google and a star rating of just over two stars. Unlike other services such as hairdressers, restaurants, or car washes - conveyance providers always end up getting at least some negative reviews from the opposite side in the transaction. Not their own clients. 99.9999% of people involved in a property sale (obviously exaggerating for effect but essentially a truth) feel it should have gone faster and been easier. Most solicitors will blame the other side's solicitor for any issues that arise. Then their client goes on the web to complain about it. So make sure to read the reasons for any negative rating that has been left.
This is one of the things we discussed in the previous article about good reasons to keep a local firm's branding when two firm's merge. That's why there is only a small "Y" in the corner of the Cooks Solicitor logo rather than changing the name completely. That's also something we would consider a good sign that people outside the industry might not be aware of.
Put simply, if a firm is doing really badly or has a bad reputation in a local area - then the branding will be changed. So the fact Cooks Solicitors have kept the same branding even though it's part of a much larger nationwide organisation could be a very positive sign. It also means you've got the best of both worlds - i.e. a genuinely local firm but with a much larger firm's resources behind it. That can surely only be a positive thing?
A quick note on navigation again though as this firm has it's own official site at www.cooks-solicitors.co.uk (with a hyphen). Regular variants such as www.cookssolicitors.co.uk or www.cooks-solicitors.com are not owned by the firm which is important to note because of the amount of fraud currently hitting the property law market. People have handed tens of thousands of pounds of their home deposit to scammers simply because they received an email pretending to be their solicitor to say the payment details had changed.
There are other law firms with 'cook' in them such as Cooks Lawyers and Mark Cook solicitors with similarly matching domain names. However the problems of phishing usually come from emails or people typing the wrong web address directly in to their browser. It can therefore be a good idea to bookmark the site or use a search function instead just in case.
General Notes: Usually if Legal Aid is possible we've mentioned it above, but you can always ask. We haven't looked in depth at their recruitment program so are unaware of any job vacancies available. For a career with Cooks Solicitors it's best to visit the website (www.cooks-solicitors.co.uk), check opening hours, and find the correct phone/email contact details. Simply emailing a CV to reception looks lazy. Each law firm's Law Society and/or SRA number should be on their site, usually at the bottom of each page.
This Cooks Solicitors article is rated
4.1 / 5 based on 18 reviews. †
(Voting has been paused for this page.)
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