The red terracotta Victoria Law Courts on Corporation Street have held Birmingham's magistrates' court since the reign of the queen they are named after; next door, the Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts contain a Crown Court that is among the busiest outside London. Between them they see every kind of case the second city produces: drug supply along the M6 and the county lines that run out of the city, violence and public order around Broad Street and Digbeth at night, knife offences, domestic abuse, driving matters from the Aston Expressway, fraud, and the youth cases of a very young city.
None of it starts in court. It starts in a West Midlands Police custody block, and the advice that matters most is the earliest. Anyone arrested or asked to attend a voluntary interview is entitled to a solicitor at the police station free of charge, whatever they earn, and what is said in that interview is often what decides the case. A Birmingham criminal solicitor attends the interview, obtains disclosure, advises on whether to answer questions, and then takes the case through the first magistrates' hearing, any sending to the Crown Court, trial and sentence, instructing a barrister where the charge demands it.
Legal aid is means-tested in the magistrates' court and may require contributions in the Crown Court, but most defendants in Birmingham qualify for some help, and many of the city's criminal firms hold a legal aid contract. Private clients should ask for a fixed fee for motoring offences and a staged estimate for anything bigger; some firms also take on regulatory, professional disciplinary and serious fraud work privately.
Criminal defence firms serving Birmingham are listed below, verified firms first and then by distance. Read our guide to criminal law, how criminal law solicitors work and whether you can get legal help for free, or see criminal solicitors in Coventry.
