On market days the stalls fill the square below the west front of Wells Cathedral, and the brass plates of the city's solicitors hang a few doors away. Wells is England's smallest city and, for legal purposes, a market town: it serves the farms of the Mendip Hills and the Somerset Levels, the retired people who have moved here for the cathedral and the quiet, the visitors who come for Wookey Hole, Cheddar Gorge and Glastonbury, and, most summers, the festival at Pilton that briefly gives this corner of Somerset the population of a city. The law that goes with all of that is shared between a few local firms and the larger practices in Bath, Bristol, Taunton and Yeovil.
No court in Wells
Wells no longer has a court of its own, so every hearing means a journey. Magistrates' cases from the Mendip area are heard at Yeovil or Taunton, Crown Court trials go to Taunton or Bristol, and civil and family hearings are listed at Bath, Yeovil or Taunton. Someone arrested in Wells is likely to be taken to the custody centres at Bridgwater or Keynsham, where the duty solicitor is free, and employment tribunal claims are handled from Bristol, usually by video. A good Wells solicitor will say which hearings can be attended remotely.
Farms, retirement, visitors and the festival
The countryside comes first. Dairy farms on the Levels, sheep and quarrying on the Mendips, cider orchards and the cheese makers around Cheddar generate partnership agreements, succession plans, agricultural tenancies, rights-of-way disputes and the planning questions of barns, farm shops and campsites. Retirement comes second: Wells and its villages draw people in their sixties and seventies, so wills, lasting powers of attorney, care-fee planning and probate are the staple of every local practice. The festival season and tourism come third, with seasonal staff, licensing, bed-and-breakfast planning rules and the contracts of the traders and campsite operators who work the summer. Property runs through all of it: listed houses in the centre, farmhouses with agricultural occupancy conditions, bungalows on the edge of the city, and the radon and flood questions that the Mendips and the Levels each raise.
Paying for advice in a small city
Wells firms are small and charge market-town fees: usually fixed for conveyancing, wills, powers of attorney and the divorce application, and hourly with an estimate for anything contested. Legal aid is scarce in rural Somerset: a few firms hold contracts for crime or family work, and a legal aid case may mean a solicitor in Taunton, Yeovil or Bristol. Check household insurance for legal expenses cover, and read whether free legal help is available. All firms listed are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and those shown as featured have also passed the site's verification.
Using this page
The sector pages below explain how each area of law works from Wells, with the firms listed under each. The Wells search finds solicitors near any address from Shepton Mallet to Cheddar, the Somerset search covers the county, and the Best Solicitors in Bath and Best Solicitors in Bristol pages are an hour away if a city firm suits you better. The legal insights section is a plain-English starting point.
