Birmingham is the legal centre of the Midlands, and it looks the part. The Victorian terracotta of the Victoria Law Courts on Corporation Street still houses the magistrates' court, the Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts beside it hold a Crown Court that is among the busiest outside London, and a short walk away the Birmingham Civil and Family Justice Centre on Bull Street brings the county court, the family court and the Business and Property Courts in Birmingham under one roof. The employment tribunal sits in the city centre too. Around these buildings, in the offices of Colmore Row and the Colmore Business District, are the regional and national law firms; the high-street practices are spread through Sutton Coldfield, Erdington, Harborne, Kings Heath, Handsworth, Sparkbrook and every other part of a city of more than a million people.
Whichever you choose, you are dealing with a firm regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Firms shown with a verified badge on LawFirms.co.uk have also been through our own verification, which checks their SRA record, their contact details and what their clients say about them.
What Birmingham asks of its solicitors
The city's scale means every kind of legal work is done here, but some needs stand out. Housing ranges from Victorian terraces in Moseley and Balsall Heath to detached homes in Four Oaks, interwar semis across Hall Green and Northfield, and the new apartment blocks of Digbeth and the Jewellery Quarter, and an unusual number of Birmingham houses are leasehold, which keeps conveyancers busy with lease extensions and freehold purchases. Selly Oak and Edgbaston are full of student lets for the University of Birmingham, while Aston and Birmingham City University students fill the city centre.
Employment work comes from some of the largest employers in the country: University Hospitals Birmingham, the city council, HSBC UK at Centenary Square, the HS2 works at Curzon Street and the manufacturers and logistics firms along the M6. Birmingham is young and strikingly diverse, so family law, from children arrangements to marriages with a religious ceremony but no civil registration, is a daily matter for its solicitors, as is immigration. The Jewellery Quarter's designers and the region's engineering firms generate intellectual property work, and the Business and Property Courts bring commercial disputes that would once have gone to London.
Fees, legal aid and first meetings
Ask any Birmingham firm how it charges before you instruct it. Conveyancing, wills and uncontested divorce are usually offered at fixed fees; disputes are generally charged by the hour or in agreed stages. A free or low-cost first appointment is common, legal aid remains available for most criminal cases and for family cases involving domestic abuse or care proceedings, and a home or motor insurance policy may include legal expenses cover. Our guide on getting legal help for free explains the options.
Finding the right firm
The sections below take each area of law in turn and list the Birmingham firms that practise it. For a solicitor near a particular postcode, from Sutton Coldfield to Longbridge, use the Birmingham search; for the wider conurbation see solicitors in the West Midlands, or go straight to our pages for Coventry and Wolverhampton. Our legal insights are worth a read before you make the first call.
