I founded Lestons to provide a workable solution to the high cost of professional legal assistance, the idea came after I was served a burger in the worlds most well-known outlet by a person whose name I recognised as I had just been charged £250 an hour for his work. To say I was surprised was an understatement, determined to know more I invited him to lunch (not at his place of work) and he explained that whilst he worked on my case it was as an apprentice on minimum wage, he was working behind the counter, serving burgers to fund his general living costs.

 

Explanatory note - once someone qualified with a law degree, they had to work for two years as an apprentice before classing themselves as a “Solicitor”, this was known as their PQE (Post Qualification Experience) period and allowed firms to exploit new graduates, some even recruited new talent on a voluntary apprenticeship basis.

 

This obviously annoyed me but also alerted me to the fact that the system was “broken”, there and then I became determined to resolve the issue and break the monopoly that solicitors had, further research confirmed my suspicions, solicitors only dealt with issues for the wealthy, they all did conveyancing, wills, and so on. NOBODY did the majority of issues that the lower classes had, debt, benefits, modern slavery and so on – there was simply no money in it.

 

But what about legal aid? I decided to test the issue, firstly I researched what Legal Aid covered, then created a false case that would ensure it met all the criteria. I then wandered around the six Legal Aid solicitors in my nearest city. Each referred me to one of the others, literally going round in circles, however ALL of them offered to case the case on a private basis. The notion seemed to be “if you cannot leave a £500 deposit at the door – don’t bother coming in”. This heightened my resolve to break the monopoly and make legal help available to everyone, not just the socially privileged.

 

I resolved to remedy the problem with the following four objectives:

1. Find a way to pay newly qualified graduates a fair wage;

2. Block-book solicitors on a freelance basis so that we obtain a great discount, which is passed onto you, in addition to this we are recruiting our pool of solicitors who will work remotely, this allows us to recruit those who are semi-retired (or unable to work in a normal practice through disability or other commitments);

3. Make the cost of professional legal help far more affordable; and

4. Create the UK's largest free library of legal letters for anyone to download and use, the idea is simple, empower people with the information. Paying for legal help (including ourselves) should always be their last option.

 

The solution lay with using technology and remote working, by being mainly online avoids high office costs, by having the graduates and solicitors on a freelance basis cut my bottom line, by using these principles, and keeping the figure tight I could meet the four objectives.

 

When the idea was first mentioned to solicitors it was met with hostility (no surprise there) and I was told many times that it would not because the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) would not allow freelance work and so on, there would be a mountain of regulatory issues that would scupper the idea. Thankfully, after much lobbying, the SRA changed the regulations on the 25th of November 2019 which allowed solicitors to do freelance work and this change would allow the system to work.

 

I worked with students from Lincoln University and later with 62 student solicitors from CV Links, a company developed to help new law graduates gain work experience. They helped create the 400 plus pages of free content on the website. Covid 19, plus a serious medical situation delayed the launch and the company that created the first website hashed it up so much that after a year or so we had to start over. The website itself will be under constant review and change, adding new letters, revising legislative reports etc.

 

All clients receive a personal caseworker and a bespoke dashboard from where they can see every aspect of their case, they can access the dashboard from any PC or smartphone, giving case access 24/7.

 

Our aim is simple – break the monopoly of expensive solicitors and make legal advice affordable to all, not the few, I think we have succeeded.

 

If you have any legal letters that we do not have on the site please email them to us at support@lestons.co.uk and after redacting any personal information we will list them on the site to help others in the same situation.

 

I hope that you find the site useful.

 

Regards

 

 

 

K Brooks (Founder)