How to tell a good solicitor from an expensive one

After a long time on both sides of this — hiring lawyers, being the lawyer being hired — I've come to think the whole business of choosing one is set up to mislead you. The real thing you need is good judgement applied to your situation, and judgement is invisible until it's tested. So the mind reaches for what it can see: the size of the firm and the size of the bill. Neither tells you much. Some of the best lawyers I know work in small firms nobody's heard of; some of the worst advice I've seen came on very expensive letterhead.

Here's what actually predicts whether you've found a good one — six signals, the questions that reveal each, and the red flags that should send you elsewhere.

The six signals

1. Will you deal with the person doing the work? At many firms the person who wins you over isn't the one who does your matter. Continuity isn't a luxury — the person who knows your situation should be the one advising on it, because every handover is a chance for something to be missed and a reason for the bill to grow.
2. Do they give you a straight answer? A good lawyer tells you what they think. One who's covering themselves gives you every possibility and no recommendation. You're paying for a view — make sure you get one.
3. Are they honest about cost? How a firm talks about money before you hire it is the truest preview you'll get of the whole relationship. Straight about the bill usually means straight about everything.
4. Do they tell you when not to bother? A lawyer who's genuinely on your side will sometimes tell you that you don't need them — that the claim isn't worth chasing, that you can handle this one yourself. Every time they do, it costs them a fee and buys them your trust for life.
5. Do they explain the risk, not just the answer? You want "you can do this, it'll probably be fine, but here's the one-in-ten scenario where it isn't, and here's what it would cost you." That treats you as the adult who owns the risk — which you are.
6. How do they handle bad news? You'll learn more from this than from anything in the pitch. The good ones tell you fast and straight that your position is weak or you've made a mistake, because bad news only gets more expensive the longer it's left.

The questions to ask in the first meeting

Signals are only useful if you can test them, so here's a short script for the first conversation. You're not interrogating anyone — a good lawyer will welcome every one of these, which is itself the point.

• "Who exactly will handle my matter, and will I be able to speak to them directly?"
• "Can you do this for a fixed fee? If not, what's your best estimate, and what would make it go higher?"
• "Based on what I've told you — what would you actually do in my position?"
• "What's the most likely way this goes wrong, and how likely is that?"
• "Is this something I genuinely need a solicitor for, or could I handle parts of it myself?"
• "When you've got bad news for me, how and how quickly will I hear it?"

Listen less to the polish of the answers than to whether they're direct. Hesitation, vagueness and a retreat into "it depends" on all of these is data.

The red flags

And the things that should give you real pause:

• They won't commit to who does the work. If you can't get a straight answer to "who will handle this," assume it's not the person in front of you.
• They're cagey about cost. A firm that won't discuss fees openly before you've hired it is showing you how every future conversation about money will feel.
• Everything is urgent and everything is a fight. A lawyer who reaches for litigation as the first answer to every problem is either not thinking commercially or not thinking about your bill.
• They never disagree with you. A solicitor who only ever tells you what you want to hear is worth very little on the day you need to hear what you don't.
• The advice has no recommendation in it. If, after paying for it, you still don't know what they'd actually do, you've hired a commentator, not an adviser.

Why size and price aren't on the list

None of these are about how big the firm is or how much it charges, and that's deliberate. A big firm can give you a junior and a fortune-sized bill. A cheap one can give you exactly what you needed. Size buys you a brand and a lot of overhead you help pay for; it doesn't buy you judgement. Price tells you what a firm charges and almost nothing about whether it's any good — the correlation is far weaker than the profession would like you to believe.

What all six signals really test is one thing: is this firm set up to serve you, or to bill you? Everything else follows. If you're weighing up who to trust with something that matters, have a no-obligation conversation with us — bring the questions above, and hold us to every one.

This article is one solicitor's view and general information, not legal advice — always take advice on your own situation before acting. Buzz Solicitors is a trading name of AD Solicitors Limited, a recognised body regulated by the SRA (no. 8011228).

Robert Festenstein

Solicitor · Head of Legal, Buzz Solicitors

A solicitor with more than two decades' experience in commercial law, dispute resolution, insolvency and judicial review. Robert acts for businesses, directors and individuals on the matters that carry real consequence — and leads Buzz Solicitors.