Our Vision

Access to justice

Are we a law firm? No! We are so much more!

We are a new type of company that provides legal services that really focus on our client’s needs and do not live in an ivory tower of rules, regulations and self-interest! Our team comprises solicitors with over 25 years of experience, who work as consultants at our partner law firm. Thanks to this, if you do need traditional legal representation, we can help too.

But we are not a law firm and are not registered with the Solicitor Regulations Authority.

We are here to help you to help yourself and we recommend you read the book, Flying Solo, for an insight as to what our business is all about. [Click here].  While you do not, therefore, get the usual protections of a law firm (see 1), this actually means we are freed from the constraints around the traditional law practice. We can price competitively and speak freely and openly about the problems with lawyers and the court system and give you completely independent and neutral advice.

We can do a great deal of what traditional law firms do: proper legal advice, drafting your particulars of claim or defence (or reviewing your own drafting work), helping you write a protocol complaint letter before action, advise you on the minefield of the Civil Procedure Rules, give tactical advice and even, in some cases, appear for you at court – all without the expensive and complicated baggage that comes with traditional law firms!

Where it is clear you do need full representation and needs a solicitor to go on the court record, we can refer you to our partner law firms. Indeed, some of our solicitors work for a law firm, South Bank Legal, our main partner, and so we can seamlessly transition from our Court Wingman service to a traditional law firm. We will not take on work that we are not specialised in and have a list of preferred lawyers we can recommend, where South Bank Legal is not the right fit, to make sure we put round pegs in round holes!

As part of our core services, whether legal surgery or full case reviews, we can review cases where clients have an existing lawyer that they what a second opinion on.

(1) This includes insurance to cover you against negligent advice or complaints to the Legal Ombudsman or the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority.

Our Team

Alex Woods​

Founder and Managing Director

Alex has over 20 years’ litigation experience, in the fields of crime, fraud, financial irregularity, personal injury and general litigation.

Before finding the law firm, he was a management trainee and an in-house lawyer with a manufacturing company, which was where he first came across the problems small businesses face in disputes with better-funded opponents. As a director of a property company, The Hold Investment Company, with a portfolio of 15 commercial properties, he has gained a good understanding of the property sector and has built good contacts amongst estate agents, developers, landlords and local businesses.

Alex Woods’ career history has given him an appetite for No Win No Fee litigation. His simple principle in litigation is to be thoroughly prepared before issuing proceedings and to have a realistic view of the likely value of the claim. Once he is confident that the case has merit and the client is determined, he is prepared to fight all the way to trial. He has structured his business so that it is sufficiently capitalised to do so, and from his experience he knows that law firms are often reluctant to run no-win-no-fee because they do not know how to finance such cases.

Aside from work, Alex’s interests are in the film and television sector. He had a feature film commissioned as a producer and creator and has won awards both in the UK and Canada. He speaks French, enjoys squash and ski-ing and is also interested in philosophy, storytelling and meditation.

Alex also runs a YouTube channel on various aspects of the law. He has appeared on television on the BBC programme, “Rip Off Britain!” as a financial mis-selling expert.

Daria Siatkowska​

Head of Litigation, Warsaw

Daria is a qualified solicitor in the courts of England & Wales. She graduated from Nottingham Trent University and completed the Legal Practice Course at Nottingham Law School.

She is a very good generalist litigator who gained a wide breadth of experience at an early stage of her career through work experience placements during her degree and she also has plentiful experience of direct client contact through her volunteer work at Nottingham Citizens’ Advice Bureau. She won the Vice Chancellor scholarship at Beijing Language and Culture University. She has a real passion for her job and loves helping people. She has good advocacy experience and is a robust litigation lawyer, frequently appearing in person in the family courts. She also thoroughly enjoys the drafting aspect of her work, recognising their importance in obtaining a clear grasp of the issues in a case.

Daria handles general litigation and co-habitation property dispute work at Redwood Legal and is an excellent go-to lawyer for any Polish clients, whether small business or private individuals, facing a UK dispute.

In her spare time she enjoys spending time with her family, has a love of travel and foreign languages. She has also ran a small business sewing children’s clothing.