LAW firm Bonallack and Bishop have celebrated the attendance of the 10,000th client at their weekly free legal surgeries, with help from the Journal.

The drop-in surgery has been running every Tuesday evening in Salisbury since June 2001, and has being joined in the last few years by a specialist family law drop-in surgery in the firm’s Amesbury office every Wednesday afternoon.

Bonallack and Bishop Senior Partner, Tim Bishop, said: "I'm really proud of our amazingly successful two legal surgeries. "It’s incredible that we have assisted so many people with a huge variety of legal problems from dangerous dogs to divorce, and consumer complaints to compensation claims.”

“The key to our success is consistency.

"Apart from Christmas and Easter, I believe we have only cancelled one single weekly surgery in around 17 years.

"That’s down to the massive personal commitment of our team in delivering this service.”

Tim added: “I don't think we could have done it without the Salisbury Journal.

"Although our surgeries are now widely known, the successful launch of the scheme was down to our advertising in the Journal and we've continued advertising our surgeries successfully in the Journal since then.”

Colin Carnegy who originally set up the free advice scheme and ran the surgery for most of its 17 years, said: “I have really enjoyed helping so many people with free advice.”

“Understandably, many people don’t know where they stand with regard to the law and others simply can't afford legal advice, and the surgery has helped 10,000 of them put their mind at rest about a possible legal problem or pointed them in the right direction.”

Bonallack and Bishop's free drop-in legal Salisbury surgery takes place every Tuesday between 5.15 PM and 7 PM at their offices at Rougemont House, Rougemont Close, off Manor Road. The Amesbury family law surgery is held between 2 PM and 5 PM each Wednesday at their offices at Queensberry House, 5 Salisbury Street.