Richard Smithies is a partner of Bearders, a firm of Solicitors which has served Halifax and West Yorkshire for over a hundred years. He is a founder member of Solicitors for the Elderly and is a committee member of the Probate Section of the Law Society. Richard is currently Chairman of Age Concern Calderdale and a trustee of the Bearder Charity, established to help the people of Calderdale.

In 2002 Richard began his successful series of web seminars, (the first and only ones of their kind in the world), on legal issues relating to trees, hedges and boundaries.

Uniquely, Richard spearheads a team of experts not only in the law but also in the field of online teaching and learning bringing excellence to your online web seminar experience.

In 1999 Richard launched the successful Garden Law website which is number one on many of the Search Engines and is on target for 5 million hits in 2003. In March 2003 he launched his Personal Injury website, Had an Accident which, already is either number 1 or on the first page of the Google Search Engine for many of the accident and personal injury key words.