Page "Solicitor" Paragraph 4

In the English legal system, solicitors traditionally dealt with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts although solicitors were required to engage a barrister as advocate in a High Court or above after the profession split in two.

Minor criminal cases are tried in Magistrates ' Courts, which constitute by far the majority of courts.

More serious cases start in the Magistrates Court and may then be transferred to a higher court.

The majority of civil cases are tried in county courts and are almost always handled by solicitors.

Cases of higher value (£ 50, 000. 00 or above ) and those of unusual complexity are tried in the High Court, and the advocates in the High Court were until recently barristers engaged by solicitors to assist.

Barristers, as the other branch of the English legal profession, have traditionally carried out the functions of advocacy in the High Court and Crown Court and Court of Appeal.

However, barristers have now lost this exclusivity and solicitors may now extend their advocacy to such courts.

In the past, barristers did not deal with the public directly.

This rigid separation no longer applies.

Solicitor advocates with extended rights of audience may now act as advocates at all levels of the courts.

Conversely, the public may now hire and interact with a barrister directly in certain types of work without having to go to a solicitor first.