By Alexandra Harper 
Most people don’t think about solicitors until they need one, and by then the situation is often already stressful. A house purchase falling behind schedule, a family matter that needs sorting out, an employment dispute that’s dragged on longer than it should have. In that moment, the difference between a firm that explains things clearly and one that doesn’t can matter more than almost anything else.
Local firms have an obvious appeal: someone nearby who understands the area, can meet in person, and isn’t just a name on a website. But proximity on its own doesn’t tell you whether a solicitor is any good at the specific thing you need help with.
Check the Register, Not Just the Website
Anyone can call themselves a legal advisor. Only people regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority can call themselves a solicitor, and the SRA’s register will tell you exactly who’s authorised, at which firm, and whether any conditions apply to their practice. It takes about thirty seconds and it’s worth doing before you commit to anyone.
Keelys, for instance, is a Lichfield firm regulated under SRA number 490684, and its parent LLP is registered at Companies House as OC337482. It’s the kind of detail that’s easy to verify in under a minute, and worth checking for any firm you’re considering, not just this one. The register will also tell you if a firm holds Cyber Essentials certification, which speaks to how seriously they take the security of the personal and financial data they handle on your behalf, something that matters more with conveyancing and probate work than most people realise until it goes wrong.
What You’re Actually Buying
Local Solicitors firms tend to fall into two shapes: generalists who cover a broad spread of everyday legal work, and specialists who go deep on one area. Keelys sits closer to the first camp, running services across commercial contracts, corporate work, debt recovery, employment law (for both employers and employees), commercial litigation, real estate, family law, probate, conveyancing, and wills and powers of attorney. That breadth suits people who might need more than one type of advice over the years, since it means not having to build a new relationship from scratch every time something comes up.
Family law is a good example of where the human side of the job matters as much as the legal knowledge. Divorce, finances, and child arrangements rarely follow a script, and a solicitor who can explain timescales, costs and realistic outcomes without burying you in jargon tends to make an already difficult process more bearable.
Property Work Deserves Extra Scrutiny
Conveyancing is where a lot of people have their only real experience of a solicitor, and it’s also where delays cause the most stress, since a chain can collapse over paperwork that should have taken a day. Firms accredited under the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme have had to demonstrate a consistent standard of practice to get there, so it’s a reasonable thing to ask about if you’re comparing options for a purchase or sale.
Wills and estate planning get less attention but arguably matter just as much. A poorly drafted will, or one that hasn’t kept pace with a change in circumstances (a new asset, a change in family structure, even cryptoassets, which more solicitors are now having to factor into estate planning) can cause real problems for the people left behind. It’s worth revisiting a will every few years rather than treating it as a one-off task.
Why So Many Complaints Are About Communication
This is the part firms tend not to advertise, but it’s worth knowing. The Legal Ombudsman’s most recent figures show poor communication was the single biggest complaint category in 2025/26, at 24%, ahead of delay and failure to progress (22%) and failure to advise (19%). Cost transparency came up repeatedly too. None of that is really about legal competence; it’s about whether the firm kept you informed and told you what things would cost before you found out the hard way.
Asking a firm upfront how they’ll keep you updated, and getting a straight answer on likely costs before you sign anything, filters out a lot of the problems that show up later.
A Local Presence Is a Convenience, Not a Guarantee
Being nearby helps when you want a face-to-face meeting or you’re dealing with a local property matter. It says nothing, on its own, about whether a firm actually handles your type of case well. Keelys has operated out of Lichfield for more than 40 years, which speaks to longevity, but longevity and local roots are a starting point for due diligence, not a substitute for it.
Before instructing anyone, it’s worth asking who specifically will handle your case (not just which department), what the likely total cost looks like, and what the realistic timeline is. A firm that answers those questions clearly, before you’ve paid them anything, is usually a good sign of how the rest of the relationship will go.