A fraud trial from Weston-super-Mare, a shareholder dispute from Swindon and a contested divorce from Taunton can all end up in Bristol. The city is where the South West's legal system concentrates: a Crown Court that takes the region's gravest cases, the Business and Property Courts for the West Country, an employment tribunal, and several of England's largest law firms outside London, around Temple Quay and Queen Square. Beneath them, high-street practices in Bedminster, Fishponds, Kingswood and Clifton look after the city's houses, families and defendants. Few places outside the capital offer so much choice, so knowing what you need comes first.
Bristol's courts
Bristol Crown Court sits in Small Street in the old city, with the magistrates' court on Marlborough Street a few minutes' walk north. Civil and family cases, from a possession claim to a contested financial settlement, go to the Bristol Civil and Family Justice Centre on Redcliff Street, which also houses the district registry of the High Court and the Business and Property Courts. The employment tribunal hears claims from Bristol, Bath, Somerset and Gloucestershire in the city, and people arrested by Avon and Somerset Police are usually taken to the custody centres at Patchway or Keynsham.
What the city asks of its solicitors
Bristol's economy is unusually mixed, and its legal work follows. The aerospace and engineering plants at Filton and Patchway, the Ministry of Defence's procurement headquarters at Abbey Wood and the hospitals at Southmead and the Royal Infirmary generate redundancy consultations, settlement agreements and whistleblowing claims. The University of Bristol and the University of the West of England add student tenancies, academic contracts and families from abroad. Television, animation, games and chip-design companies trade in copyright, patents and founders' agreements. Housing supplies the most everyday work: Victorian houses in Clifton, Redland and Cotham divided into leasehold flats, new apartment blocks along the Floating Harbour, terraces in Bedminster, Easton and Horfield whose prices have outrun local wages, and shared student houses that need planning consent.
City firm or local firm?
The choice in Bristol is a real one. The big commercial firms suit a company sale, a serious injury claim or an international divorce. For conveyancing, a will, a settlement agreement or a children application, a smaller firm near home is usually cheaper and just as capable. Most quote fixed fees for conveyancing, wills, lasting powers of attorney and the divorce application, and hourly rates with a written estimate for disputes. Many of the region's criminal and family legal aid contracts are held by Bristol firms. Every firm on this site is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority; the featured ones have also been through the site's own verification.
Finding a solicitor near you
The sector pages below explain each area of law as it works in Bristol, with the firms that practise it listed under each. The Bristol search finds solicitors close to any street from Avonmouth to Brislington; the Somerset and Gloucestershire searches reach the towns over the boundary, and Bath has its own Best Solicitors in Bath page. The legal insights guides explain common problems in plain English, and can I get legal help for free is worth five minutes before you pay anyone.
