Welcome!

Click here to Make An Enquiry now!

WHO WE ARE

Douglas Silas Solicitors are a small, niche but nationally acclaimed firm of solicitors specialising exclusively in Education & Disability particularly in cases concerning Special Educational Needs (SEN). We were established by Douglas Silas on 3 May 2005, before which he had successfully represented many hundreds of clients during the previous 10 years for other firms. Since setting up we have won or successfully settled around 85% of our cases including many SEND Tribunal (formerly known as 'SENDIST') appeals/DDA claims, Judicial Reviews and Appeals against SEND Tribunal (SENDIST) decisions.

Subscribe To Our FREE 7-day Email Course On

"Everything You Wanted To Know About The Law on Special Educational Needs But Were Too Afraid To Ask!"

WHAT WE DO

We advise and represent parents of children with SEN in many situations. Please see 'Can We Help You?' for further information. Our whole firm specialises exclusively in Education Law and particularly in SEN Cases. This is practically all that we do! Over the years, Douglas has helped literally thousands of parents to get the right outcome for their child, even when they thought that there was no hope left. We can act as a 'consultant' advising parents to help them successfully navigate through the Educational law maze themselves or, more often, advise and represent them directly from the very beginning of the 'Statementing' process right through to an appeal to the SEND Tribunal (SENDIST) if that becomes necessary. We have a genuinely 'different' approach from other solicitors to cases. You can see why on our page entitled 'Why Instruct Us'.

Download Our FREE Factsheets

WHAT PEOPLE SAY

For many years Douglas has been listed as an expert in Education law in both Chambers and Partners’ Guide to the Legal Profession and The Legal 500 who have said, amongst other things, that he is "'... probably the best solicitor there is for claimant type work in the field of education law', 'very committed, thorough and efficient' and "… a man who "really earns his success," according to peers". They have also said that ”He knows the law inside-out" and "cares deeply for his clients"" and most recently they have called him “a tenacious yet sensible lawyer” whose "Clients value his empathetic nature and “ethical and practical advice”" adding that Douglas is ‘a very fine, conscientious solicitor who is extremely committed to his clients’ cause’."

Download Our FREE Guide To Appealing For A Special School

ABOUT THIS WEBSITE

This website provides detailed information About Us, What We Do, What We Don't Do, and Why We Do What We Do. You can read about Our People, Our Clients and Our Cases as well as more about What People Say about us. We are also completely transparent about Our Costs and can offer Fixed/Capped Fees for SEND Tribunal (SENDIST) appeals/claims.

But we are also sensitive to the fact that there are people who may not be able to afford to instruct us or who may not need our help yet. Our philosophy is therefore to try and help them in other ways. In order to do this, we have also placed a lot of FREE information on our website. This includes 10 FREE Factsheets and a Guide to 'Appealing For A Special School' which you can download and a FREE 7-day e-mail course on 'Everything You Wanted To Know About The Law On Special Educational Needs But Were Too Afraid To Ask'. It also contains a vast range of useful information and Useful Resources that you can access and there are links to video and audio documentaries and news reports about SEN which are currently available on the internet on our Video/Audio About SEN page.

If you are researching potential schools for your child we have tried to make the process much quicker and easier for you to do by using our List of LEAs and List of Special Schools. We have also tried to save parents time when they are trying to find out about different Types of SEN/Disability. We have done this by providing a very large number of individual pages with comprehensive information about various issues and by also providing links to other relevant websites which may be able to provide Further Information or help. 

For example, we currently have information on:

• Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum (ACC)
• ADHD
• Angelman Syndrome
• Anxiety Disorders
• Aphasia
• Apraxia
• Arthritis
• Asperger's Syndrome
• Atypical Autism
• Auditory Processing Disorder
• Autism (ASD)
• Cerebellar Ataxia
• Cerebral Palsy (CP)
• Conduct Disorder
• Crohns Disease
• Cystic Fibrosis (CF)
• Developmental Delay
• Diabetes
• Down's Syndrome
• Dysarthria
• Dyscalculia
• Dysgraphia
• Dyslexia / Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD)
• Dysnomia
• Dyspraxia
• Emotional & Behavioural Difficulties (EBD)
• Echolalia
• Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome
• Emotional Literacy
• Epilepsy
• Fragile X Syndrome
• Graphomotor Skills
• Guillain Barré
• Hearing impairment (HI)
• Heller's Syndrome
• Hydrocephalus
• Hyperlexia
• Hypotonia
• Irlen Syndrome/Scotopic Sensitivity
• Landau Kleffner Syndrome
• Learning Disabilities
• Moderate Learning Difficulties (MLD)
• Mood Disorder
• Mowat-Wilson Syndrome
• Multi-Sensory Impairment (MSI)
• Muscular Dystrophy
• Neurofibromatosis
• Noonan Syndrome
• Non-Verbal Learning Difficulties (NLD)
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)
• Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) (Brittle Bone Disease)
• Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)
• Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)
• Physical Disability (PD)
• Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties (PMLD)
• Prader-Willi Syndrome
• Proprioception
• Rett Syndrome
• Scoliosis
• Selective Mutism
• Semantic Pragmatic Disorder
• Sensory Integration Disorder (SID)
• Severe Learning Difficulties (SLD)
• Sickle Cell Anaemia
• Social Skills
• Speech and Language Disorder
• Spina Bifida
• Tactile Defensiveness
• Tourettes Syndrome
• Ulcerative Colitis
• Visual Impairment
• Waardenburg Syndrome
• Williams Syndrome
• Worster-Drought Syndrome (WDS)

We have helped parents of children with all these Types of SEN/Disability and more.

We have also a page entitled SEN/Education Info which provides information about different types of SEN/educational issues, approaches or processes such as:

• ABA (Applied Behavioural Analysis)
• Annual Review
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
• Conductive Education
• Early Intervention
• Educational Psychologists (EP)
• Facilitated Communication
• IEP (Individual Education Plan)
• LEA
• Learning Support Assistants (LSA)/Teaching Assistants (TA)
• Lovaas
• Makaton
• Motor Engrams
• Music Therapy
• National Curriculum
• Note in Lieu
• Occupational Therapy (OT)
• Orton-Gillingham
• P-Scales
• Parent Partnerships
• Pastoral Support Plan (PSP)
• PECS
• Physiotherapy
• Play Therapy
• SATs
• School Action and School Action Plus
• SEN
• SENCO
• SEN Code of Practice (CoP)
• SEN Inclusion
• Son-Rise Programme
• Speech and Language Therapy (SaLT)
• Statement of SEN
• TEACCH
• Warnock & SEN

You can even read up to the minute news articles about Education as soon as they appear on the internet on our Education News Online page which you can also subscribe to for FREE through our automated daily e-mail service or RSS feed.

Subscribe to Education News Online

Finally, we have attempted to make the Accessibility of our website as good as possible. It can be navigated easily and it is almost entirely text-based so pages should download quickly. Furthermore, almost every page has been 'speech-enabled' so that you can 'listen' to a page as well as 'read' it. You can even Download Pages as MP3 Files for listening to later on your MP3 player! There is a very clear Site Map and every word on the site has been Indexed for your easy reference!

Request An E-Brochure

CONTACT US

If you want to discuss a problem with us please Contact Us directly as soon as possible or Make an Enquiry right away online. You can also Request an E-Brochure to be e-mailed to you immediately or read our Latest News. And if you are an individual or from an organisation that shares our aim of helping parents of children with SEN or a Disability we would be very grateful if you would consider placing a Link To/From this Website from your own website or blog.

Make An Enquiry now or submit your details below and someone will call you directly to take more information

We hope that you will find our website helpful. Please bookmark it or save it as one of your favourites so that you can come back to us easily if you ever need to.

Any feedback you may have will always be gratefully received.

Back to top