Sydney Mitchell Solicitors and Estate Agents

The Sydney Mitchell corporate and commercial team has earned an excellent reputation amongst both our clients and our competitors for delivering commercially driven, first class services. The diversity of the transactions undertaken by the team is impressive and includes high profile multi-million pound,  multi-jurisdictional transactions and other advice usually associated with the much larger national law firms.

Corporate Services

Our company and corporate law team provides a comprehensive range of corporate legal services including advice in connection with:

• Mergers, Acquisitions & Disposals
• Management Buy Outs/Ins
• Corporate finance
• Company restructuring
• Compliance and company secretarial agreements
• Shareholder and investor arrangements
• Directors duties & responsibilities
• Company formation

Commercial Law Services

Our commercial law team provides a comprehensive range of commercial legal services including advice in connection with:

• Supply & distribution agreements
• Outsourcing
• Asset financing
• Joint venture agreements
• Manufacturing agreements and supply chain
• Franchising and licensing
• Agreements for provision of services
• Partnerships and LLPs
• Confidentiality agreements
• General commercial contracts
• Terms and conditions
• Trademark and intellectual property
• General Data protection and subject access requests

Corporate and Commercial Legal Services

The focus of the department is on attention to detail, quality of service as well as the overall commerciality of the documentation. The objective of our services is to bring value, specialist legal knowledge and sound commercial judgment to all of our clients' requirements. We excel at driving your matter to a conclusion.

Commercial Property Services

Our team is able to advise on all areas of commercial property related work including:

• Sales and purchases
• Leases
• Agreement for lease
• Building agreements
• Development agreements
• Funding and property investment
• Site acquisitions and disposals
• Portfolio sales and purchases
• Commercial property management
• Option agreements
• Joint venture agreements involving property and property funds
• Landlord and tenant problems
• Overage agreements
• Planning
• Collateral warranties

Expert Business Property Services

Our commercial property law team is resolute in achieving our clients' business objectives. This is accomplished by our high calibre UK lawyers who are proactive, knowledgeable (both legally and commercially) and very effective negotiators.

Employment Law Solicitors in Birmingham

Our team has a strong academic yet no-nonsense approach to your problems, providing sound commercial advice and total cost transparency. Our emphasis is to establish your objectives from the outset of the instruction and then to implement a strategy to achieve this ensuring that you know what’s happening every step of the way.

Our team covers a wide spectrum of employment law issues, including both contentious and non-contentious matters. Resolving employment conflicts through alternative dispute resolution is also something that we specialise in and Dean Parnell, who heads up the employment team, has undertaken a large number of commercial mediations as lead mediator.

Professional Employment Law Services

We can assist you with a variety of areas, including:

• Employee Dismissals
• Redundancy Procedures
• Settlement Agreements
• Contracts of Employment
• Employee Handbooks
• Disciplinary Procedures
• Grievance Procedures
• Consultancy Agreements
• Employment Claims
• Health & Safety Law

We are renowned for providing practical, straightforward advice and representation which is cost effective, considered and designed to achieve your goals.

Contact our Employment Law Specialists

For more information on what Sydney Mitchell's specialist employment law team can do for your business please select a service from the main menu on the right. You may also read Employment Law in Practice for frequently asked questions or contact us via our enquiry form for tailored advice.

The Sydney Mitchell business dispute team is recognised in the Legal 500 as a leading provider of litigation services. We have experience of acting on a broad range of commercial matters ranging from modest claims through to the more complex multi-million pound commercial litigation disputes. Our approach is to identify your needs at the outset of a case and to then implement a cost effective strategy to achieve those objectives.

Our team’s specialist areas include:

• Alternative Dispute Resolution
• Banking litigation and finance
• Contract disputes
• Corporate and shareholder disputes
• Defamation, privacy and slander
• Guarantee claims - employment, debt recovery, licensing and banking litigation
• Health and safety
• Injunctive relief
• Insolvency litigation
• Insurance
• Intellectual property disputes
• International disputes
• Joint venture disputes
• Mis-selling of interest rate SWAPS
• Partnership disputes
• Professional negligence
• Property disputes
• Regulatory disputes
• Search Orders (including acting as supervising solicitor on search orders)
• Shareholder disputes
• Theft of confidential information
• Warranty claims
• Winding up petitions

The overriding aim of the business dispute team is to resolve disputes quickly, cost effectively and in line with our clients' commercial objectives. Recognising that times can be difficult, we are prepared to consider alternative funding arrangements should the need arise.

Good cash flow is essential to the success of any business. The members of our debt recovery team are experts in converting debt into cash at the earliest opportunity and provide an efficient and cost effective service which will maximise your chances of recovering outstanding debts. We appear in the Industry Guide 'The Legal 500' as a recommended firm for debt recovery in the West Midlands.

Sydney Mitchell acts for a wide range of clients from small businesses and professional firms through to much larger organisations, including Insolvency Practitioners. The success of this team is attributable to the fact that they offer competitive rates, yet do not compromise on the quality of their service. Backed up by our highly experienced Dispute Resolution Team, unlike other debt collection agents, we can pass a matter seamlessly from the letter before action through issue of proceedings to final hearing within one department and with one point of contact. This centralisation makes the proceedings much easier for our clients.

Debt Recovery Services

The team is able to offer the following services:

• Fixed fees for pre litigation work including letters before action
• Fixed fees for the various stages of undefended debt related litigation
• Financial background checks on companies and individuals
• County Court and High Court litigation
• Insolvency related litigation
• Enforcement proceedings, to include advice on the insolvency process
• Enforcement of security
• Mortgage repossessions
• Detailed reporting facility
• Advice on Terms & Conditions
• Advice on credit applications\forms.

Debt Recovery Advice - Help us to Help You

Experience tells us that a number of factors improve your chances of recovery dramatically:

• Pass the debt to us as early as possible after the due date. Chasing a debt whilst it is still ‘warm’ is a lot easier than chasing it months later.
• Where possible ensure that your terms and conditions have an up to date retention of title clause in them. This means that if the Debtor becomes insolvent you will find it easier to recover your goods.
• Check out your clients thoroughly before you give them credit, and ensure they complete a credit application form giving you relevant details - and check the details they give. If the order is large seek references and possible guarantees.
• Do your customers have the means to pay? If you are not sure, then consider payment on a COD basis. Otherwise do you really want to trade with them? Better they become your competitor’s bad debtor than yours.
• Ensure that the customer is provided with your Terms and Conditions before you finalise any contracts with them. In this way we minimise disputes as to due dates for invoices, interest etc
• Handle any complaints / queries immediately they arise and keep records of what was said. If possible confirm all conversations by e-mail or fax.
• Know who you are dealing with. Is it an individual, a partnership or a company? Does the person who you are selling to have the power to place the order?
• Consider having us look at your Terms and Conditions and ordering system to ensure that there are no loopholes in them.

Further Information on our Business Debt Management Collection Services

Please contact our team and ask for a copy of our standard tariff of fees to see if we can help you further. For routine debt collection, especially where there is a regular stream of work from a particular client, we offer a fixed fee scheme. More complicated and defended cases are dealt with on a 'made to measure' time spent basis.

Wherever possible we will claim interest, costs and compensation under relevant late payment legislation.

The vibrant, versatile and dedicated family law team at Sydney Mitchell offer the highest standard of legal advice and client care. Our department is made up of partners, associates, solicitors and assistants who all specialise exclusively in family law. Meet the family law team here.

Distance not a barrier

We have many clients from around the country including London and surrounding areas. With technology advances and zoom calls on the increase, many client discussions can be held remotely and support is there for you at every step.

Be Treated like an Individual

As a client of ours you will have an individual relationship with one advisor rather than being passed from one solicitor to another. By providing you with this dedicated one-to-one service, it allows for a cohesive and inclusive approach, minimising the trauma and anxiety associated with sensitive family matters such as separation and relationship breakdown.

If your case requires legal advice and services covering multiple areas of family law, rest assured your dedicated advisor can handle this for you. As each experienced lawyer in our family department has a breadth of knowledge, this allows them to fully manage multiple aspects of your case.

Our Family Law Services & Advice

The family law team offers a comprehensive package of advice both at the start and the end of a relationship including:

• Divorce Proceedings
• Judicial Separation and Annulment of Marriage
• Separation Agreements
• Collaborative Law - Settle your differences without going to court
• Child Law - Contact and Residence Disputes, Prohibited Steps and specific Issue Orders, Disputed Parentage and Child Abduction
• Child Maintenance and Support
• Pension Law - Issues including effects of Pension and Taxation Laws
• Court and Injunction Order - Due to Violence or Intimidation
• Cohabitation Rights and Agreement
• Property and Financial Disputes
• Prenuptial Agreements
• Innovative

In addition, we have specialists working in niche areas of family law such as contentious inheritance claims and complete trust matters.

About the Family Law Department

We have offices situated in Birmingham City Centre, Sheldon, Shirley and facilities in Sutton Coldfield, acting for clients not only from the West Midlands and surrounding counties but as far away as Australia, Hong Kong and Israel.

Whilst based at three locations the family law department works as a team. It is led by Partners Karen Moores and Mauro Vinti who, along with the family law department, are recommended in the Legal 500. The department is described as "friendly yet utterly professional".

Whether you require our services yourself or you wish to refer a friend, colleague or client, you can feel confident that our family team will provide legal advice to the highest possible standard.

Accident and Personal Injury Claims

If you’ve had an accident that wasn’t your fault, talk to Sydney Mitchell. As accident claim specialists we aim to maximise accident compensation for you.

Why use Sydney Mitchell's Specialist Personal Injury Team?

• Free initial legal advice and no win no fee agreements available
• We have a large team of dedicated personal injury specialists with experience of representing Claimants and Defendants
• We are not claims managers, Sydney Mitchell is a long established law firm.
• We operate a nationwide accident claim service
• Locally we have solicitors in Solihull and solicitors in Birmingham
• Sydney Mitchell has been established for over 250 years

What will it cost me?

• We operate on a no win no fee basis
• You pay no legal fees if you lose
• We are not a claims management company, there are no hidden costs

How much compensation will I get?

Compensation is decided by the court and is based on the type of injury and how it has affected you personally. We will use our specialise knowledge and experience to advise you what you could be entitled to.

We also have a personal injury compensation calculator which shows some of the average compensation figures awarded as an approximate guide.

Will I keep all my compensation?

If you win, some of your damages will be used to meet our legal fees and any insurance premium. To compensate for this, the amount of damages has increased by 10% for pain and suffering.

• At Sydney Mitchell you deal directly with a specialist personal injury solicitor, there are no middlemen.

As specialist personal injury solicitors in the UK Sydney Mitchell is here to guide you through making a personal injury claim.

Our team of specialist immigration lawyers is very experienced and come highly recommended.

Find out more about the team of talented immigration specialists and read what others say about them (Andre Minnaar and Melissa Southall)  

Our team understands that the law relating to Immigration can often be complicated and very daunting, making it difficult to know which option is best for your individual circumstances.  

They are very experienced in explaining and guiding you through the process by simplifying the legal procedure and offering clear and honest advice.  They will provide expert guidance to ensure you make the correct application, meet the relevant application requirements, submit the correct specified evidence, manage the entire application process for you and provide detailed legal representations to the Home Office, whilst giving you updates throughout. 

Moreover, as a result of politics and ever changing world events, immigration rules and laws change frequently, sometimes without notice. You can rely on our team’s expert and up to date knowledge to ensure you do not go down the wrong path. 

We can assist with all types of entry clearance applications from abroad or in country extension applications / renewal applications and/ or appeals. For examples of the different types of applications and or appeals we can help you with but not limited to, please click on the relevant links below: 

• Family - such as
  • fiancé, proposed civil partner, spouse, civil partner,
  • children
  • adopted and de facto adopted children
  • and / or adult dependant relatives - parents
• Human Rights applications and appeals including Article 8 family life
• Indefinite leave to remain (ILR) / settlement applications
• Long residence applications (10 year route and 20 year route)
• EEA applications and appeals
• Nationality/citizenship and
  • registration of minors as British Citizens
• UK ancestry
• Deportation applications and appeals
• Domestic violence applications and appeals
• Student Visas
• Visitor Visas
• Asylum applications and appeals,
  • including fresh asylum claims and Article 8 family life
• Travel documents
• Family reunion and appeals
• Bail Applications and hearings
• Judicial Reviews

Meet the Immigration Experts

Our immigration specialist team members are passionate about the Law and obtaining the best possible results for their clients:

• Andre Minnaar
• Melissa Southall

Our Reputation

Our team members were shortlisted by the Birmingham Law Society Law Awards 2019 for their Excellence in Client Service to Private Clients and have both been recognised by the prestigious Legal 500 directory for their talent, dedication and expertise in immigration law.

What our clients have to say about us

Our Fees

To view a list of our fixed fees for Immigration applications and appeals, please see online price guide. 

Our team will discuss with you your needs and provide you with a fixed fee tailored to the service with no hidden cost so you know exactly what the cost will be from the outset. To discuss this or any other aspect of you case, please contact us on 0808 166 8831 or the number at the top of this page.

Help and advice on Language skills requirements

We are able to help you with the types of language courses available, giving clarity and guidance as necessary.

How to contact us:

We invite you to contact us with your query, no matter how small and we will aim to find the most effective solution for your matter. 

Please call our immigration experts on 0808 166 8831 or email Andre or Melissa at [email protected]  or [email protected] and we will get in touch with you.  As an alternative, you can also complete our online enquiry form.