ABOUT US
ABOUT US
Welcome to Brooks Wills.
Providing expert will writing services in Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch, and surrounding areas.
We are members of the Institute of Professional Willwriters and the Society of Willwriters. Both are self regulating bodies that provide a standard and code of conduct that must be adhered to. This provides our clients with the assurance that they will get the level of service they would expect from a solicitor at a more appealing cost.
We have professional indemnity insurance up to £2.5M and public liability insurance up to £5M. This assures our clients that in the impossibly unlikely event that a mistake is made on our part, their assets are covered.
We will be pursuing membership to the Society of Trustees and Estate Practitioners and the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives in the near future as we are keen to broaden our services and provide probate for our clients.
Our Mission
Our Mission
Brooks Wills’ goal is to provide sound and simplified legal advice together with an empathetic will writing service to ensure every client confidently secures their legacy with peace of mind.
Our Services
Our Services
We provide the following solicitor-quality services at a more appealing price:
Last Will and Testament
Advanced Directives
Lasting Powers of Attorney
Will Trusts
Deputyships
Joint Tenancy Severance
Matt has good knowledge of the other areas of law that tend to cross over into will writing, such as family law and property law. This provides Brooks Legal with a wider and more comprehensive understanding of the legal mechanisms outside will writing, meaning our clients receive advice that exceeds the standards of most professional will writers.
Our story
Our story
Brooks Legal was founded in 2022 by Matt Brooks who gained solicitor’s qualifications over the 4 previous years. He specialised in will writing and other private client matters while studying.
Matt incorporated the company after he had received a large amount of requests to draft peoples’ wills for them. He noticed that there were a lot of companies out there that were advertising cheap online wills that are completely useless for the modern family setup. The will writing sector is an unregulated area of law and the result of that is that the market is flooded with con artists and cowboys.
Matt came across one of these cowboys once with an early client, who had spent £1,700 on the company’s services. This company had the financial power to advertise on TV yet were driven by profit over customer satisfaction and mis sold products to him.
Matt set himself a personal mission to divert as much business away from these cowboys as possible. He wanted to do this for a couple of reasons. Firstly is to ensure that everyone secures their legacy the best way possible. Secondly is to ensure that these cowboys and con artists do not damage the reputation of those that work in the will writing sector.
What our clients say about us
What our clients say about us
About Matt
About Matt
In the quest to becoming a solicitor, Matt gained a Graduate Diploma in Law from Bournemouth University and a Post Graduate Diploma in Professional Legal Practice from the University of Law in London. In university, he specialised in private client matters, employment law, family law and advanced criminal litigation. Matt chose the areas of law he did because he wanted to help normal everyday people with their problems. Those problems generally sum up to problems with the police, problems with the boss, problems with the other parent of their children, and what to do with their things when they die.
Once a law graduate has finished university they must then gain 2 years vocational experience in a law firm before they can be entered into the roll of solicitors and officially practice. In recent years the qualifications have been overhauled. The syllabus and workload remain largely the same, but the 2 years work on the end have changed. Under the old route, which Matt did, it is necessary for the graduate to work a 2 year training contract with a law firm. Under the new route, the graduate simply needs 2 years qualifying work experience.
As a result of this overhaul of qualifications, the 2 year training contract is being phased out and will be gone completely by 2029. This means graduates from the old route will no longer be able to use their qualifications to gain entry to work as a solicitor. This is starting to happen already. The competition for training contracts has always been notoriously ferocious and was made significantly worse during the pandemic when firms stopped taking people on but the universities were still graduating students. Now they are dying out completely.
In an area like Bournemouth and Poole, career opportunities are far more limited than they are in somewhere like London. Matt grew uncomfortable with the prospect of working in a big city law firm where a graduate employee is expendable, easily replaceable, overworked, and undervalued in their role. Further to this, being married with 2 young children and heavily rooted in this area discouraged him from relocation or lengthy commutes.
After receiving and honouring multiple requests from friends and family to write their wills, he decided to go into business for himself. The rest is history.
