One of Wales’s most respected and longest-established law firms has won the profession’s newest quality mark.
Cyril Jones & Co, which was founded in Wrexham over 90 years ago, has just been accredited with the Law Society’s coveted Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS).
The firm also has the distinction of being the 2,000th firm of solicitors in Wales and England to receive it.
Since the CQS was launched by the Law Society in 2011 it has quickly become recognised as the key quality mark for the home-buying process and is now a requirement for law firms acting for both the bank and the borrower on mortgage transactions for some lenders.
CQS members are entitled to act for HSBC and Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank when the firm acts for both the borrower and the bank, while Santander is requiring all solicitor practices on its conveyancing panel to have applied for CQS accreditation by March 31, 2013.
The scheme requires practices to undergo strict assessment, compulsory training, self-reporting, random audits and annual reviews in order to maintain CQS status.
It is open only to members of the Law Society who meet the demanding standards set by the scheme.
Solicitor Glen Murphy, one of the partners at Cyril Jones & Co, said: “Our clients need to know that they are getting the best service available when buying their home and gaining CQS from the national Law Society assures them of that.
“Being accredited also helps to guard against fraud and says that our clients come first.
“The conveyancing process can be complicated, so CQS gives reassurance that it is in safe hands.
“We are delighted to be part of the CQS initiative.”
Gareth Jones, senior partner at Cyril Jones & Co, said it had taken his firm around nine months of hard and exacting work to gain the CQS accreditation on behalf of its offices in Grosvenor Road, Wrexham and Chester Road West, Shotton, Flintshire.
He explained: “We have been doing conveyancing on behalf of our clients since the firm was set up in 1919 and was originally known as the ‘poor man’s solicitors’. We have since dealt with many thousands of properties across the areas we serve.
“At our Wrexham office we have a team of five solicitors plus support staff specialising in conveyancing work and at our Shotton office we have two solicitors and support staff dedicated to it.
“At Wrexham, one of our team, solicitor Marta Zemrowska, can undertake conveyancing in the Polish language, which is useful as we have quite a number of people from Poland buying property in the area.”
Mr Jones added: “We began striving for the CQS standard in April of last year and all our teams worked very hard on the process. Our accreditation comes as a just reward and recognition for everything they put into it.
“The CQS plaque will now be proudly displayed in our reception area.”
Lowri Morgan, head of the Law Society in Wales, who travelled from her base in Cardiff specially to present the CQS accreditation certificate to Cyril Jones & Co, said: “We congratulate them on becoming a CQS firm.
”All firms that now hold the quality mark have proven their commitment to high standards in conveyancing.
“Many people assume that only solicitors do conveyancing but there are other service providers out there who are not solicitors.
“CQS allows consumers who are buying a home – one of the biggest purchases in people’s lives – to not only be assured that it is a solicitor they are using for this important process, but also that it is one which has gained recognition for the high standards it provides through CQS.”
Cyril Jones, who was born in Llanarmon yn lal in 1880 and founded Cyril Jones & Co in 1919, was a lawyer of the old school with a passion for representing the poor and needy. He was a Welsh speaker who supported the idea of a Welsh Parliament and a local politician who led the clearance of Wrexham’s slums.
Most famously, Mr Jones represented the families of the miners who died in the appalling Gresford Disaster of 1934 when 267 men died, many of them entombed underground.
He briefed the famous barrister and Labour MP Sir Stafford Cripps for the public inquiry which led directly to the nationalisation of the mines by Clement Atlee’s post-war Labour Government.
Mr Jones served as Mayor of Wrexham, a Freeman of the borough and even stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in Flintshire against his brother, Liberal MP Fred Llewellyn Jones, who had founded another eminent law firm, Llewellyn Jones and Armon Ellis.
