Yorkshire firm Raleys Solicitors - best known for running thousands of miners’ compensation claims - has gone into administration.

In an announcement on its website, the Barnsley-based firm says insolvency practitioner Begbies Traynor was appointed as administrator on 11 March.

The announcement gives no further information except to advise existing clients to contact Leeds firm Ison Harrison.

A spokesman for Begbies Traynor said: ‘To ensure that their clients' matters and interests are protected with the minimum of disruption and to maximise returns to creditors, the partners of Raleys have made arrangements for all ongoing clients' files to be transferred to Ison Harrison, solicitors in Leeds.’

Raleys was formed more than 130 years ago and specialises in work-related disease cases, in particular miners’ claims, as well as personal injury, employment, conveyancing, and wills, trust and probate.

The website lists two people, Carol Gill and John Welch, as partners, with a further 14 ‘legal specialists’ and 16 members of a support team.

The firm has suffered high-profile court defeats in recent years relating to the way it has handled some miners’ claims.

Last year the Court of Appeal upheld a negligence claim after finding that its ‘commoditised’ advice failed to cover the full extent of the claim.

Gill, the managing partner, said the case was one of 186 similar claims made against Raleys, the vast majority of which had been brought by the law firm Mellor Hargreaves, of Oldham. Raleys had successfully defended 141 of them, and had conceded and settled a further 35.

In 2013, in Leeds County Court, HH Judge Gosnell found negligence on the part of Raleys, and awarded its former client damages of £5,925 on the basis he had a 75% chance of securing extra compensation.