Guides

Buying a house is not just handing over money for keys. Conveyancing is the legal machinery that transfers ownership, from searches and contracts to exchange, completion and registration - and to the point of no return.

Not all partners own the firm; here is the difference between equity and salaried partners, and why it matters to clients and lawyers alike.

Most sizeable law firms in England and Wales trade as limited liability partnerships. Here is what that legal form actually means for the people who own and run them.

Hourly rates, fixed fees, no-win-no-fee and the loser-pays rule: a plain guide to how lawyers charge and who ends up paying.

The SRA Accounts Rules keep the money a firm holds for its clients strictly separate from its own. Here is why that ringfence is one of the profession's most important protections.

Behind every partnership agreement sits a remuneration system, and the choice between lockstep, merit-based pay and hybrid models shapes how a firm behaves as much as how it pays.

Neither term is an official ranking, but both shape how the City's legal market talks about itself - what the two tiers mean and which firms sit in them.

Beyond the job title, becoming an equity partner changes how you are taxed, how you are paid, and what you personally stand to lose.

Law firms have priced work by the hour for decades, but fixed fees, caps and contingency arrangements now sit alongside it, each shifting risk between client and lawyer in a different way.

When someone dies, their estate has to be gathered in, debts and tax paid, and what remains passed on. How probate authorises that, what changes when there is no will, and where solicitors fit in.

A red flag in due diligence is rarely a deal-breaker on its own; what matters is how buyers and sellers negotiate it into the contract.

When a deal signs but does not complete on the same day, conditions precedent are the gateway that must be cleared before ownership actually changes hands.

A funder with no stake in the dispute pays the legal bills in exchange for a cut of any win - and a 2023 Supreme Court ruling has left much of the market's paperwork in legal limbo ever since.

Red flag reports are built around deliberate limits on scope and materiality, and understanding those limits matters as much as reading the flags themselves.

A red flag report is the short, prioritised summary lawyers produce during due diligence to flag the issues that could actually affect whether a deal happens or on what terms.

Before a company changes hands, lawyers pull it apart on paper. A guide to what due diligence looks for and why it shapes the whole transaction.

England and Wales has three distinct legal professions, not two, each with its own regulator, training route and way of working with clients.

England and Wales splits its legal profession in two. What each branch actually does, how they are regulated and where the old dividing lines have blurred.

The traditional two-year training contract has been replaced by a more flexible system of qualifying work experience, and it changes how firms bring on new solicitors.

The right to stand up and argue a case in court is not open to every lawyer. It is a reserved legal activity, and the rules on who has it separate barristers, solicitor-advocates and everyone else.

With several ways to qualify as a solicitor now running side by side, the practical choice for aspiring lawyers is less about rules and more about funding, structure and which employer path suits them.

A growing share of solicitors work not in law firms but inside companies, charities and public bodies. How the in-house role differs from private practice, and why privilege is trickier when your only client is your employer.

Since 2021 the path to becoming a solicitor in England and Wales runs through a single national exam. How the SQE works and what it replaced.

Three different professionals can all call themselves lawyers in England and Wales, but understanding who actually does what helps you make sense of your bill and your case.

A solicitor owes undivided loyalty to a client, and the conduct rules are strict about when a conflicting interest means a firm has to decline or drop the work. How the two kinds of conflict are treated differently.

Beyond the headline sanctions, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal runs on its own rules of evidence, costs and appeal that shape how every case actually plays out.

Before any hearing takes place, a case has to travel a long road from complaint to referral, and most never get that far.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority sets the rules for solicitors in England and Wales and enforces them. What its powers are and how discipline works.

A guide to the rule that lets clients speak candidly to their lawyers, why it matters, and where its limits lie.

Privilege is often described as absolute, but in practice it has sharp edges, and understanding where those edges lie matters as much as understanding the protection itself.

Legal professional privilege works differently depending on whether a business is seeking legal advice or facing a regulatory probe, and getting the distinction wrong can expose sensitive material to disclosure.

Firms regulated by the SRA cannot practise without qualifying insurance on strict minimum terms. What that cover protects, why it is unusually demanding, and what happens when a firm closes.

When the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal finds a case proved, the sanction it imposes can range from a formal warning to permanent removal from the profession, and each carries different practical consequences.

When a solicitor's conduct is serious enough to go beyond an SRA fine, it can end up before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, a separate court-like body with the power to strike a solicitor off.

When a complaint about a lawyer cannot be resolved with the firm, it can go to the Legal Ombudsman. How the free, independent service works and what it can order.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority exists to protect the public and uphold trust in legal services, but its remit has firm boundaries that are often misunderstood.

Unfair dismissal, discrimination, unpaid wages - the forum for most disputes between workers and employers is the employment tribunal. How a claim gets there, the tight deadlines, and why it is now free to bring.

Since October 2023 there have been four tracks, not three - how the value and complexity of a civil claim decides which procedural path it takes through the courts.

Public funding for legal help exists, but it is narrower than many assume. What legal aid covers, the means and merits tests that gate it, and why so much civil law now falls outside its scope.

A decision going against you is not usually the end of the road, but appealing is narrower and harder than most people expect.

From the County Court to the Supreme Court, a guide to the hierarchy that decides civil disputes and how a case moves up it on appeal.

A look at the little-used procedure that lets certain cases jump straight from the High Court to the Supreme Court, bypassing the Court of Appeal.

Most disputes never reach a judge. The two main routes around the courtroom - a mediator who helps parties settle, and an arbitrator who decides - work in very different ways, and the courts increasingly expect them to be tried.

Most appeals in England and Wales never get off the ground because a judge has to grant permission first, and understanding that filter matters as much as understanding the appeal itself.

Not an appeal against a decision, but a challenge to how it was made - how judicial review holds public bodies to the limits of their own powers.

Before anyone issues proceedings in the civil courts of England and Wales, they are expected to follow a set process of warning, disclosure and negotiation, and getting it wrong can be costly.

Generative AI is spreading through law firms, but a series of court rulings has shown what happens when lawyers trust it too far. The uses, and the risks.

Technology-assisted review is now a routine part of large disclosure exercises, but using it properly means satisfying the court, not just the software vendor.

Large disputes now turn on millions of documents rather than a few box files, so lawyers rely on structured e-discovery workflows and predictive software to find what matters without reading everything by hand.

Those strings of brackets and abbreviations after a case name are not decoration. They are an address system for the law, telling lawyers exactly where a judgment lives and how much authority it carries.

Beyond the courtroom debates about predictive coding, e-discovery is a project that firms and clients have to plan, cost and manage, and understanding the workflow explains why it costs what it does.

Self-executing code is often marketed as a replacement for lawyers, but English law treats a smart contract as a tool for performing an agreement, not a substitute for one.

Code can execute automatically, but when something goes wrong the law still has to work out who is liable, which court hears it and what the remedy looks like.

Fixed pricing is forcing law firms to understand their own costs properly for the first time, and that shift matters more than the fee arrangement itself.