Stephensons

“Strategic awards do not match client care for vulnerable individuals Stephensons Solicitors LLP heavily promotes its corporate accolades, but my…

experience as a vulnerable Legal Aid client managing multiple long standing chronic conditions,physical disabilities and Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) reveals a starkly different reality. While acting as my solicitors of record for two active civil rights court claims, the firm unexpectedly closed my files at the eleventh hour during an active internal grievance dispute. For my first case, they issued a formal file closure letter giving me less than 24 hours’ notice to format and post complex court forms before a critical service deadline, completely jeopardising my access to justice. Furthermore, in a formal internal complaint response signed by a partner, the firm explicitly admitted in writing that their handling solicitor entirely omitted to evaluate or document my intersectional claims regarding race, religion, and nationality in my formal merits assessment. For my secondary linked claim, the solicitor explicitly admitted in writing that she closed the file without ever conducting the full merits assessment the firm was publicly funded to perform. They attempted to withhold my evidence packs via temporary digital links, only releasing my full physical files late after external regulatory escalation. RESPONSE TO THE FIRM'S SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM: Do not reply with a generic automated message asking me to log a complaint with your customer care team. I have already fully exhausted your internal procedures. I raised a formal grievance in April 2026, and your Discrimination Department Head issued a Final Response in May 2026 explicitly refusing to uphold my complaint. Because your internal process failed to provide a remedy, this matter has been escalated. A formal complaint is now actively open with the Legal Ombudsman, and a misconduct report has been officially logged with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for severe client detriment. Corporate accolades cannot mask a documented paper trail of eleventh hour client abandonment.

“Mixed feelings about this place, I contacted them to represent me in court.

I thought they were doing this but later learnt a DBA did not include tribunal representation and at this point was bound by a contract with them. Fees were high. They did not help me with a schedule of loss for tribuanl before they opened negotiations with the respondent. Later on, once I discovered what my schedule of losses were, I noticed that their opening offer to the respondent was rather low. We got the agreement before court so I feel a little hard done by financially due to all of this. I advise anybody who falls into this trap to do some research first before entering into an agreement with Stephensons. That said, Rohan and Stephen (the latter I didn't deal with much) were great in doing their job, as stated we got a pay out. They were quite easy to get hold of and answer any questions that I had. During negotiations, they were going to counter offer with a lower amount but after I researched a little and developed a SOL I advised them against their suggested counter offer and they agreed to counter with what I asked and thus we got what I asked for, I just wish I had done research and a schedule of losses earlier on as we probably would have got more than what we did. I would like to say I would probably use them in future if needed but their fees would probably put me off. I wish them all the best and thank them for their work!