Smith and Graham Solicitors: Info

Smith & Graham Solicitors - Hartlepool Smith & Graham Solicitors have a wealth of expertise and experience in Medical Negligence, Personal Injury, Serious Injury, Criminal Law, Conveyancing, and Will/Probate matters. Established in 1888 they have grown into one of the leading firms in the North East of England with local offices in Hartlepool, Peterlee, and Middlesbrough. They pride themselves on sound judgement, in-depth knowledge, and the ability to provide practical solutions for their clients. Tranquillity House, Harbour Walk, Hartlepool, England, TS24 0UX http://www.smithandgraham.co.uk law@smithandgraham.co.uk 01429 271651

Smith & Graham Solicitors - Middlesbrough Smith & Graham Solicitors have extensive expertise and experience in Medical Negligence, Personal Injury, Serious Injury, Criminal Law, Conveyancing, and Will/Probate matters. Established in 1888 they are now one of the leading firms across the North East of England. They promise sound judgement, in-depth knowledge, and practical solutions for their clients. Local offices in Hartlepool, Peterlee, and Middlesbrough. 1st Floor, 329 Linthorpe Road, Middlesbrough, England, TS5 6AA https://www.smithandgraham.co.uk law@smithandgraham.co.uk 01642 425040

Smith and Graham Solicitors in Hartlepool, Peterlee and Middlesbrough: Review

Since Covid hit we've seen a lot of law firms go under and a new wave of single proprietor practices has started pushing across the UK. The number of large multi-office firms only seems to increase due to some smaller businesses merging to survive the difficult years we've had.

Smith & Graham however seem to fit neither of these descriptions and look unscathed by the recent developments. So if things have gone bad, it hasn't affected their outward image. As we only review the legal industry and it's professionals from our experience working with them over the past 20 years - that's the only thing we can comment on. But hopefully from the examples and resources quoted in the article below, you'll see why they have been added to our network.

While that establishment date looks impressive, it is one of the last things we take into consideration when checking out a firm. Sadly establishment dates are one of those marketing things companies with less-than-good-intentions misuse all the time. We've seen companies claim 150-year origins simply for moving into the old premises of a much older firm.

Smith and Graham have 'Team' pages with profiles of their staff including experience and areas of practice which is great and something we always encourage the firms we deal with to create. They also have actual prices listed on their website which is rare and great to see. But the main thing we want to cover in this piece relates to:

Conversely this may sound like common sales pitching that you see on every law firm's website. But it actually contains two of the main things we think you should look at when picking a firm. The first is the expertise of the staff, and more importantly - their experience.

The best resource we've found is The Law Society of England & Wales website which is packed with useful details such as contact details, all office addresses, practice areas, and staff qualification dates. If you check out the page for this firm you'll see a range of qualification dates spanning the past five decades. Including Colin Sleeman (qualified in 1983), Andrew Blair (1999), Jonathan McGowan (2009), Himat Sidhu (2014), right up to Zarah Rowntree in 2022.



Bringing back the point about establishment dates: it is very possible to end up with a 1-year experienced lawyer from a 200-year-old firm and a 40-year veteran from a 1-year-old law firm brand. So the fact Smith and Graham solicitors have a wide range of seasoned professionals alongside fresh blood is something much more of note.

The other item in the original quote is about client happiness and the obvious place to check that out is the public forums such as Google, Yelp, Trustpilot, etc. However make sure you enter the full name of the firm and the town. If a firm has more than one office some sites like Google will only show reviews for each individual office names in the search. We've seen law firms with 5 star reviews for their food and 1 star reviews for the bad haircut they got. So always read comments too. Don't just flick through average ratings.



The independent review boards were mainly positive comments like this. Unfortunately some negative ratings had no comments with them in order to know if the complaint was valid or even about the correct firm. But overall the weight of the plus+ experiences is much greater anyway.

A quick note on navigation with the firm having an 'and'. The official site is www.smithandgraham.co.uk and currently www.smithandgraham.com doesn't not redirect there. There is no ampersand in domain names so www.smith&graham.co.uk can't exist and currently no firms are using variants such as 'www.smithgraham.co.uk' either. This is important because depending on the browser you use, entering an invalid address can send you to search results which can list the wrong firm at the top.

That's becomes even more important to remember due to the firm handling property matters which have been hit but huge amounts of fraud in recent years. People have ended up handing over tens of thousands of pounds to fraudsters something based on nothing more than an official-looking email saying they need to pay the house deposit into a totally different bank account. Make sure you're on the correct site and don't discuss bank details or payments via email.

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 Smith and Graham Solicitors it's best to visit the website (www.smithandgraham.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.

Other Law Firms with Reviews like Smith and Graham Solicitors:

» www.thaxtedlegal.com - And then less than three weeks later ...
» www.summerfieldbrowne.com - The public reviews themselves are sometimes not very helpful either ...
» www.theladybarrister.co.uk - This is despite her working in the industry since at least 2014 /b according to the BSB certificate ...
» www.woodstocklegalservices.co.uk - Having worked in the legal industry for over 20 years /b we're still surprised to come across some firms that we'd not heard of before ...
» www.bridgemcfarland.co.uk - Photos of people in suits smiling and shaking hands with bits of paper in their hands are very nice ...
» www.mjvlaw.co.uk - Plus any firm that deals with property /b will always ...
» www.2hb.co.uk - We've been working in this industry for over 20 years now and have seen a huge amount of progress /b and changes ...
» www.whsolicitors.co.uk - Immigration is constantly changing ...
» www.backhouse-solicitors.co.uk - The most common are those a href="https ...
» www.guardianlaw.co.uk - That's because while many people are very happy to post about the great pizza or hotel stay ...
» www.goldsmithbowers.com - Always remember though that ampersands cannot be in web addresses /b ...
» www.buchananco.co.uk - it sounds great /b but doesn't actually provide you any information to help you separate them from any other firm ...
» www.acitylawfirm.com - Surprisingly dispite the generic words in the name ...
» www.lslegaluk.com - However according to our poll a few years back only 8% of you trusted reviews provided by companies on their own website ...

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• Debt / Bankruptcy
• Immigration
• Family Law
• Divorce
• Conveyancing
• Personal Injury

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