Who we are

We don’t think you should just take our word that our teams of dedicated, specialist lawyers are some of the leading experts in the region. The reassurances given by our membership of several specialist law panels and our being one of the few firms to hold the Law Society’s Legal Practice Quality Mark, Lexcel, for excellence in legal practice management and client care, should help. But it’s not just about awards and standards. We are dedicated to making sure we’ve thought of the practical things that are important to you. Our local office network ensures we can keep our overheads down so we can pass that saving on to you. We use a range of technologies to ensure you always get the most up to date service and you can even start the ball rolling online for some of our services. Finally, although free parking is available at nearly all of our offices, if you can’t get in we’ll always try to arrange a home visit.

Legal 500 Leading Firm 2020 – Listed for Personal Tax, Trusts and Probate, Personal Injury, Clinical Negligence and Contentious Trusts and Probate.

Legal 500 Leading Firm 2019 – Listed for Personal Injury, Clinical Negligence, Contentious Trusts and Probate and Personal Tax, Trusts and Probate

Ranked as leading firm in Chambers UK 2018 for Personal Injury.

Legal 500 Leading Firm 2017 – Listed for Personal Injury, Clinical Negligence, Contentious Trusts and Probate and Personal Tax, Trusts and Probate

Recommended in the Chambers UK guide 2017 for Personal Injury: Mainly Claimant — Bristol and surrounds.

Shortlisted for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Firm of the Year – Bristol Law Society Awards 2016

Legal 500 Leading Firm 2016 – Listed for Clinical Negligence, Contentious Trusts & Probate and Personal Tax, Trusts and Probate

Shortlisted for Law Firm of the Year (over 15 partners) and for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Firm of the Year – Bristol Law Society Awards 2015

Legal 500 Leading Firm 2015 – Listed for Contentious Trusts and Probate and for Clinical Negligence (Claimant)

Your satisfaction depends on our not only doing an excellent legal job but also providing an excellent service. We constantly assess and review this and rely on your feedback to suggest areas for improvement. Our client charter sets out the standards we think you can expect to receive. We send out a client satisfaction questionnaire at the end of every case and all replies go directly to David Sheridan, our Managing Partner. We also welcome external feedback and our case files and procedures are regularly audited by the various legal services panels that we are on and the Law Society’s Lexcel mark.

For detailed legal information relating to the website please go to terms and conditions

If you require details of our equality or diversity policy, or would like details of our staff’s diversity survey, please contact our compliance officer Georgina Peacock via georgina.peacock@wards.uk.com or 01934 413535

Coronavirus Updates – for internal use only.  For Wards staff without current access to work emails, please log in here with your password for the latest internal updates.  For further information, contact David Vernalls.

The majority of individuals who contact us communicate with us in a polite and courteous manner. This policy is aimed at how we manage the relatively few individuals whose actions we consider unreasonable. We will manage behaviour that is aggressive or abusive, or which places unreasonable demands on our staff.

Aggressive/abusive behaviour is behaviour or language (whether verbal, i.e. face to face or by telephone, or written) that may cause staff to feel intimidated, threatened or abused. Examples may include:

1. • threats,
   • verbal abuse,
   • racist and sexist language,
   • derogatory remarks,
   • offensive language,
   • rudeness,
   • making inflammatory statements, or
   • raising unsubstantiated allegations.

Unreasonable demands and communication may include:

• requesting responses to unreasonable timescales,
• insisting on speaking with certain members of staff, or
• adopting a “capture-all” approach by contacting many staff members and third parties.

How will we manage unreasonable behaviour?

All staff have the authority to manage unreasonable behaviour. This may include informing you that we will start recording the phone call, or informing you that the phone call will be terminated. (Note that if we begin recording a phone call, the resulting audio file will be transcribed and then immediately destroyed.) Incidents of unreasonable behaviour must be reported to the compliance officer at the earliest opportunity.

We have a zero-tolerance position on violence and threats against our staff and this behaviour will always be reported to the police if appropriate.

In all other cases, we may inform you that your behaviour is unreasonable and ask you to modify your behaviour. We will explain what action will be taken if the warning is ignored and, if you do not modify your behaviour, we will take steps to restrict communications with you. If we decide a restriction is appropriate, we will consider which of the options open to us best fits the circumstances. The level of restriction that we apply will be proportionate, taking into account the nature, extent and impact of your behaviour on our ability to do our work. This may include blocking emails/calls from you, terminating our retainer, limiting who within Wards is able to speak to you etc.

Any decision to limit our contact with you will be made at partner/manager/compliance level and will be communicated to you. If you object, you may ask for our decision to be reviewed by another person of partner/manager/compliance level.