About us

F. Arthur Jones & Co is a friendly high street firm based in the pretty south-east Devon town of Exmouth.The firm prides itself on its long-standing local reputation for excellent service combined with approachability. We are not a solicitors' firm which adopts airs and graces; we are here to help and find solutions to a variety of legal problems.

The practice was founded in 1951 by Mr. Arthur Jones and it was he who established the firm's ethos of welcoming clients with friendliness and informality. To this day it is seldom necessary for a client visiting the firm to make a prior appointment. All members of the staff are involved with meeting clients and in the day-to-day business of dealing with their affairs, meaning that there is always someone available to help.

Anthony Wade, who qualified as a solicitor in 1961, is the firm's proprietor. Mr Wade spent the early part of his legal career working in London, covering diverse areas such as criminal, matrimonial and commercial matters. In 1973 he became the sole proprietor of F. Arthur Jones & Co., choosing to retain the firm's existing name and build up expertise in the bread and butter of the high street law firm: conveyancing, wills and probate, criminal, commercial and matrimonial work.

Since then the firm has dealt with legal work ranging from the everyday to the obscure. Today Mr Wade focuses on the firm's core business of conveyancing, wills and probate. His experience of these matters has been honed over a lifetime in the law and, allied with knowledge of many other legal problems, enables Mr Wade to find incisive, practical solutions for clients.

F. Arthur Jones is not a firm with a phalanx of solicitors or an array of legal executives. But it is a firm where a tight-knit staff work with their Principal to look after an extensive network of clients who reside in and around south-east Devon and further afield. Many clients are based in nearby Budleigh Salterton (pictured), where Mr Wade lived and ran a branch of the firm for many years.

The firm was featured in the Times for 20 August 2009.

Solicitors Regulation Authority firm number: 52084