On a weekday morning the platforms at Lichfield City and Lichfield Trent Valley fill with people bound for Birmingham, and the legal needs of this small cathedral city follow them down the line. Lichfield is affluent, Georgian at its centre and three-spired at its heart; its residents work in Birmingham's offices, hospitals and courts, retire to the villages of Lichfield District, or serve at Whittington Barracks, headquarters of the Defence Medical Services. Its law firms are small and personal, and many clients who could use a Birmingham practice would rather see someone in Lichfield.
Where Lichfield's cases are heard
Lichfield is not a court town in the way that Stafford or Birmingham are. The magistrates' court serving the district deals with motoring, drink-driving and public order cases, but anything serious enough for a jury is sent to Stafford Crown Court, with some cases listed in Birmingham. Civil and family cases go to the county and family courts covering south Staffordshire, which may mean a journey; a local solicitor will say where a case will be listed. Employment tribunal claims, whether against Lichfield employers or the Birmingham ones where so many residents work, go to the Birmingham hearing centre or are heard by video.
What people in Lichfield need
Property leads. Houses in the conservation area around the Close, Dam Street and Bore Street are listed or sit beside listed buildings, and selling one means consents, old covenants and rights of way from Johnson's day. Boley Park, Darwin Park and the new building at Streethay bring more conventional conveyancing, much of it for families moving out from Sutton Coldfield for the schools and the trains. HS2 has cut through the district's farmland, leaving compensation and blight claims behind.
An older, comfortable population keeps will solicitors busy with inheritance tax planning, trusts and lasting powers of attorney, while the service families at Whittington bring postings, pensions and relocation into divorce and children cases. Employment work is mostly for commuters: settlement agreements, redundancies and discrimination claims against Birmingham employers. Business clients are the city centre's independent shops, cafés and professional practices, the distribution operators at Fradley Park and farms from Alrewas to Shenstone.
Fees and legal aid
Lichfield solicitors charge less than Birmingham's city-centre firms, and a free or fixed-fee first meeting is usual. Conveyancing, wills and uncontested divorces are generally quoted as fixed fees; disputes are billed by the hour with an estimate for each stage. Legal aid is thin on the ground here: criminal legal aid comes through the duty scheme and family legal aid is limited to domestic abuse and care cases, so read can I get legal help for free before ruling it out. Every firm listed is SRA-regulated, and featured firms have also passed the site's own verification.
Using the page
Each area of law is set out below as it works from Lichfield, with firms under each. The Lichfield search finds the nearest solicitors to any address in the city, Burntwood or the villages, and the Staffordshire search widens it to Tamworth, Rugeley and Cannock. Best Solicitors in Birmingham covers the larger practices of the second city, and Best Solicitors in Stoke-on-Trent the north of the county. The legal insights guides are a good first read.
