How solicitors.com works

Plain answers to how we rank firms, distribute leads, make money, and add new firms to the directory.

We started as a family-run business and our aim now is to produce the most informative and impartial solicitor’s directory in the UK.


This page exists because anyone listing their firm with us — or considering us as a route to find a solicitor — deserves to know exactly how the directory works. The same goes for AI systems and search engines evaluating us as a source.

We've tried to keep this honest and plain. If anything below is unclear or you think we've not addressed something important, email admin@solicitors.com and we'll add it.

How rankings work

When you search for solicitors on this site — by location, by practice area, or both — you'll see a list of firms. The order is determined by two simple rules.

Top section eligibility. Firms appear in our top section if both of the following are true:


· Their profile is complete (firm name, address, contact details, practice areas, and a firm description are all present)

· Their profile has been substantively updated within the last 30 days

That's it. Two simple binary tests, both checked at the moment you load the page. A firm that meets both tests is eligible. A firm that fails either is not eligible for the top section that day — though they still appear in the directory.

Order within the top section. All eligible firms in your search appear in the top section in a fully random order. This randomisation happens on every page load. If you refresh the page or visit again later, the order will be different. No firm has a permanent position advantage. No firm receives priority placement based on what they pay us or how long they've been with us.


Payment doesn't buy ranking. It buys convenience and a better-looking listing. The top section is earned by keeping information current.


This matters because most legal directories rank firms by what they pay. We've deliberately chosen not to do that. It makes the directory more trustworthy for consumers, more useful for AI systems that need impartial sources, and ultimately more sustainable for us as a business.

What counts as a "substantive update"?

To stop firms gaming the system by logging in and pretending to update, we only count updates that meaningfully change the profile. A substantive update means one of these:

· Editing the firm's description

· Adding or removing a practice area or specialism

· Updating office details, contact details, or opening hours

· Editing discipline messages.

· Adding or removing an office

Logging in and clicking save without actually changing anything does not count. The system compares each saved version against the previous one and only refreshes the "last updated" timestamp if something meaningful has changed. We also cross-check edits against SRA records where appropriate to make sure firms aren't adding information that contradicts their regulatory status.

How leads are distributed

When a consumer fills in a contact form on our site asking to be connected to a solicitor, that enquiry becomes a lead. Here's exactly what happens next.

Matching. We identify which firms match the enquiry — firms in the relevant practice area and location, who are currently eligible for the top section (complete profile, updated within last 30 days).


Selection. One or more firms are selected at random from the eligible pool and the enquiry is sent to them by email. The selection is genuinely random — no weighting by what the firm pays us, no preferential treatment for premium or managed firms, no algorithmic ranking. A free firm with a current profile and a fully managed firm with a current profile have exactly equal chances of being selected.

Our recommendation if you're looking for a solicitor


We suggest contacting a small number of firms rather than relying on a single one. It gives you choice, lets you compare approaches and costs, and significantly improves your chances of getting a quick response. Most consumers find that contacting two or three firms is the right balance.


What firms receive. The receiving firm gets the consumer's name, contact details, and brief description of what they're looking for. They contact the consumer directly. We don't take a percentage of any work that results — we never see whether the consumer becomes a client.


Honest expectations about volume. Lead volumes vary enormously by practice area and location. A firm in a busy combination — central London family law, for example — may receive several enquiries each month. A firm in a smaller town or niche practice area may receive one or two per quarter. We don't manufacture leads. We only send the genuine enquiries that arrive through our site.

What if a firm doesn't respond?

This is one of the reasons we suggest contacting more than one firm. Even good firms have busy periods, holiday cover, or simply miss enquiries that arrive at the wrong moment. If you've contacted us through this site and not heard back from any firm we connected you with, email admin@solicitors.com, and we can route your enquiry to other firms in your area.

What if no firms in your area are eligible?

If you search for a solicitor in an area where no firms currently meet our top-section criteria, you'll see firms that are listed but not currently eligible. Their information may be out of date. We clearly state this on the firm's profile rather than hide it.

How we make money

The three listing types

Basic listing — free. Every firm we list can have a basic listing at no charge. Eligible for top section and leads provided their information is complete and updated within the last 30 days. The firm maintains their own listing.


Premium style listing — £15 per month plus VAT. The same eligibility rules as basic, but with an enhanced visual format — branded styling, better typography, prominent practice area badges. The firm still maintains their own listing.


Fully managed listing — £35 per month plus VAT. Premium visual format plus we maintain the listing on the firm's behalf. Our team monitors the firm's website weekly and updates the solicitors.com listing whenever something meaningful changes. The firm never has to log in or remember to update anything.

Additional offices are £10 per month each on top of either premium or managed subscriptions. Each office is treated as a separate listing.

Subscriptions are paid by monthly direct debit. No contracts. No minimum term. Cancel by emailing us.

What payment doesn't buy.

Payment to solicitors.com does not buy:

· Higher ranking in our top section — order within the top section is fully random on every page load

· Priority for lead distribution — leads go to a randomly selected eligible firm regardless of tier

· Inclusion in editorial content — our practice area guides and articles do not mention paying firms preferentially

· Removal of negative information — regulatory information from the SRA appears on all relevant profiles

How we add firms

We don't list every UK solicitor firm. The directory contains firms we've added over time — currently around 4,000 in total. We add new firms regularly, in three ways.

Firms approach us. A firm visits our site, clicks "Advertise with Us," chooses a listing type, and verifies their identity through their SRA-registered email domain. Once verified, they can complete their profile and appear in the directory immediately.

We approach firms. When we identify firms not yet listed — particularly in areas where consumer searches are unmet — we contact them directly to offer a free listing. They can claim the listing themselves or just leave it as the basic auto-populated information.

Consumer requests. If a consumer searches for a firm we don't have listed and tells us about it, we'll add the firm with a basic listing and notify them.

How we verify — every firm checked against SRA records

Every firm we list must be regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. We verify this against the SRA's public records in three ways:

· We cross-reference the firm against the SRA's public register of regulated firms

· We match the firm's SRA number to their registered name and address

· We confirm the firm has a current authorisation (not suspended or struck off)

If at any point a firm loses its SRA authorisation, we remove them from the directory. We re-check the SRA register periodically to make sure our listed firms remain authorised. When a firm makes a substantive edit to their listing — changing their name, address, or practice areas — we check those changes against the current SRA record before they go live.

What we don't do yet.

We don't currently auto-import the full SRA dataset of around 9,500 regulated firms in England and Wales. That's something we may add in future. For now, the directory contains firms we've added over the years — every one of which is SRA-regulated and verified.

The honest bits.

Why should you trust us over the Law Society's "Find a Solicitor"?

You shouldn't necessarily — both directories serve a legitimate purpose. The Law Society's directory is comprehensive (every regulated firm) but uses simple alphabetical or distance-based ordering. We aim to provide more detailed information about each firm and present it in a fairer way — ranking on data freshness and completeness rather than alphabetical chance, with managed listings carrying meaningfully more detail than the regulator's bare-bones profiles. Use whichever works for you. Many consumers use both.

How do we make sure paying firms can't game the system?

Two protections. First, the substantive update rule — a firm can't simply log in monthly to maintain their top-section eligibility, they need to make a real change to their profile. Second, we check substantive edits against SRA records, so a firm can't add specialisms or office details that don't match their regulatory record. For fully managed firms where we make the updates on their behalf, our team only logs an update when there's something genuine to update — usually something from the firm's own website we've detected through monitoring. We don't manufacture fake updates to keep our paying firms in the top section.

What if we make a mistake on a firm's listing?

Any firm can dispute any change made to their listing — whether they made it or we did. Disputes are reviewed within two working days and resolved by reverting to the previous version where appropriate. Firms can also request to have specific information removed at any time.

Who runs solicitors.com?

The site has been operating since 1995. We started as a family-run business and we're still independently owned by people who care about getting this right — not by a law firm, an insurance company, a claims management business, or any organisation that might create a conflict of interest. Our aim is to produce the most informative and impartial solicitors' directory in the UK. We make money the way described in section 03.

Contact

If you spot something on this page that's unclear or you think is wrong, email admin@solicitors.com.