Russell-Cooke Reviews 10

I availed of the services of Russell Cooke late last year when purchasing a flat in London and dealt with one of their solicitors, Joseph. He came recommended by some friends who had also dealt with him when buying their house. My experience was positive.
-Communication was clear and prompt (from the point of getting a quote/estimate of fees, through to the conveyancing process, and even post-completion queries)
-Joseph acted in my best interests, handling issues as they came up (e.g. answering questions I had throughout the process patiently, and pushing for clear and complete answers/responses from the seller's solicitor during the conveyancing process)
-Fees were reasonable, and reflective of the quote I received before retaining their services

I would not recommend Russell-Cooke.

I worked with a junior lawyer following my redundancy, and I was consistently discouraged from negotiating a stronger severance package. I requested six months; the company initially offered two. My lawyer advised me to settle. I refused, and the offer increased to three months. Again, I was strongly advised to accept. I went against this advice and ultimately secured four months , confirming my concern that negotiation opportunities were not being fully pursued.
Following this, I received an email in November outlining a remaining fee. The following morning, I received another email with almost double the amount, without any explanation or change in circumstances.
Then, after months of silence, I received an invoice from the accounting department in January, including additional interest and an amount that did not match any previously discussed figures. I requested clarification twice and received no response. However, the invoice has continued to be re-sent monthly with increasing interest.
Overall, I found the experience disappointing, lacking transparency, and unprofessional.

I definitely wouldn't recommend this firm. When back and forth for month's, only for them to then increase the fixed fee by 3 times the initial amount mentioned. They dealt with my case previously (Nathan) and he was very good, but my second dealing with them has been a joke (Matt).

The firm also asked me to top up their retainer because we had a received favourable outcome, after a fixed fee was agreed, which again is beyond me.

Hired these guys to help with a domestic abuse case. I paid retainers, shared evidence and initially there seemed to be some attempt to progress things but the firm soon went quiet, after months of chasing for updates I eventually gave up. I wouldn't recommend this firm at all.

Unfortunately, I used them for probate on my late father's estate as my father had used them initially when my mother passed away. Their fees were extremely high despite me doing most of the leg work and management of my late father's estate. On multiple occasions I felt that they were not acting in my interests. An example being when we sold the family home and despite our conveyancer forwarding the funds to them the same day as the sale, the solicitor wanted to hold the money for 10 days before even confirming a date for when they would release our money. Only when I escalated and said this was unacceptable was payment made to some of the parties. One recipient waited for payment for 2 weeks and only when chased was payment finally made. Another example was when I gained email confirmation from them that all income tax matters had been closed, only 3 months later when trying to close the estate I was told a further step was required to get confirmation of tax closure, which delayed things for a further 3 months. Towards the end I had to directly chase HMRC myself to get closure and finalisation on Inheritance tax and income tax, which made me think why I was paying them! Sometimes emails would take a working week to be replied to and throughout the process we had 5 solicitors assigned, admittedly over a 3-year period, but this probably tells its own story. For the cost, I don't think they provided much value add and I would certainly never use again. 

In my professional career I dealt with numerous law firms, I have to say RC and Russell Cook Trust Company are possibly the worst.
Their estimates are a complete joke. The initial estimate £10K-£20K, which doubled within a month, after 3 yrs the bill eventually came to over £200K. Their attention to detail borders on the incompetent.

Putney Branch. Highly recommend. Morris John & his P.A. Helen Gaskin, have been very efficient & helpful from beginning to end. As an Executor of my Mother's Will, they have kept me up to date at every step of the sale of my Mother's property. There were many complications, however, nothing was too much trouble & everything was explained & dealt with immense patience, for which I am very grateful.

we needed a simple will urgently as we are travelling in the middle east soon. they were recommended by a banker/wealth manager friend and we heard them speak on Radio 4.
We were passed around their new starter recently qualified team with an initial quote of around £2K. their response to calls/emails was poor and eventually they tried to upsell us estate management and trusts and increased their quote to £6k plus. they were unwilling to talk or meet us unless we signed up to this.
they may be suitable for corporates or high net worth individuals not private individual such as us. we will be going with a neighborhood firm and discounting using these type of london firms.

Russell Cooke (Putney office) acted efficiently for us throughout the administration of a deceased friend's estate, but their charges were ridiculously high.

We didn't realise this would be the case until a number of months had passed and they sent us a list of their costs to that point. It showed that every minute and second of work had been timed, recorded, and charged for at a very high rate - even simple two- or three-line emails acknowledging reception of a document we had sent them were charged for!

Their total charge for the administration of an uncomplicated estate over the course of roughly one year (2022 - 2023) was just under £26,000 in total, incl. VAT.

In the future I will be sure to take such work to a solicitor who is based well away from horribly and unnecessarily expensive London.

Feel completely messed about - provided details about a litigation case, had me hanging for weeks, and then turned around and said they didn’t have availability - I seriously wonder if they simply didn’t fancy the details of the case, which I think is an immoral work ethic.