The last few weeks have been a blur. That’s not just because of my ageing, failing eyesight, but more due to a month or two of hectic webinar and judging activity.

The judging was for the Today’s Conveyancer inaugural awards.

Firstly, the webinars were numerous. This included Law South’s discovery days, Atlas Cloud’s webinar on managing remote working, Legal Eye’s ‘Securing the financial future of your firm’, and Menzies ‘Management Information and Strategic Planning.’

The reason for mentioning all of them is that something struck me as a theme which ran through all of these discussions, and the review of the submissions for the awards.

That theme related to the power of integration of technology.

To give an example, Coadjute won the Today’s Conveyancer award for Innovation. Their model connects the property software platforms used by estate agents, conveyancers, mortgage brokers and lenders. Their submission was the epitome of the them- they have looked at the end to end process, and realised that there is a flow of information that can be harnessed and guided through different platforms, hugely improving efficiency and creating a vastly improved experience for the firms using it.

In the same category were other submissions along similar lines. Both law firms and tech providers who were knitting tech solutions together to a greater or lesser extent…

…but all the time realising that there was a core principle at play – SIMPLICITY.

It may sound counter intuitive to think that utilising several tech products within one process is a simplification. However, like a duck swimming on the water, a system which provides a straightforward interface for the user but has leading edge, complex technology behind it is an extremely attractive proposition.

The webinars confirmed this. There was much discussion around the flow of accurate data. The importance of that data for making business decisions. The power of communication with clients, as far as customer service is concerned. Also, the benefits that can bring for online reviews.

At The Cashroom, our in-house tech development team have been working on creating system integrations with a number of Practice Management Systems. We will be launching four such integrations in the next month, with more to follow.

The principle behind our endeavours in that direction are the same as I mentioned earlier – SIMPLICITY.

We support any firm on any Practice Management System, using our secure portal to communicate with our clients. By integrating with systems we can improve the flow of data and reduce any need for re-keying. As a result, this will greatly reduce the risk profile of the process. We are also integrated with banking platforms, making our payment process slicker and more secure than ever.

I’m pleased to say that our tech development path is very much in line with the theme I saw in my hectic few weeks. We want to create simple ways for our clients to work with us and their technology. This will give them access to the very best Legal Accounting as a Service.

The legal sector is evolving. Technology is evolving with it. Are you embracing evolution? Remember Darwin’s theory- it’s always the survival of the fittest!

We were delighted to sponsor the Law Society of Scotland Annual Conference again in 2021. This year, for obvious reasons, the event was held virtually, and appears to have been a great success. The sessions we attended were very well attended by solicitors from far and wide. Perhaps many of those same people wouldn’t have been able to justify the time away from their office and travel expense to attend a “live“ event, but that’s a topic for another day!

One of the sessions I found particularly interesting was the Risk Management session chaired by Matthew Thomson of Lockton.

I found it interesting to hear that in the last five years the number of intimations against the Master Policy (the Professional Indemnity Insurance policy for the Scottish profession collectively) has fallen from around 900 claims to about half of that. There have also been far less high value claims (classed as those valued at over £1 million). It is also worth noting, in contrast, that claims against property professionals, accountants and other professional services providers are currently rising. Solicitors are (positively) bucking the trend!

It is hoped that one of the reasons for this drop in claims against solicitors is a greater emphasis from law firms on risk management. I also think that the use of technology and improved systems and processes, will also have contributed.

The question was raised during the session as to whether fraud has increased during the pandemic?

The answer from the panel was that it has undoubtedly been on the rise, with the use of email posing the greatest risk. This struck a particular chord with me in that one of the biggest developments at Cashroom in recent years has been building our Cashroom Portal technology. At its core it is the means of communication between us and our clients, specifically to get away from the insecurities of email. The portal is a secure and encrypted means of communication. With two factor authentication built in, it ensures the greatest level of practical security is applied, thereby minimising fraud risk.

As we now provide services to just shy of 10% of Scottish law firms, we would like to believe that we contribute in some way to the reduced risk overall.

The other risk that was highlighted by the panel was that cross-checking and verifying things like bank details being more difficult to do when staff are working remotely. Again, this is something that our Cashroom Portal and its’ integrated open banking technology helps to minimise significantly. In fact, in our experience, many in-house Cashiers and finance staff do not even follow a process of checking or verifying bank details, often they are simply authorised to set up and make payments themselves. This process, and its’ inherent single point of failure, compromises security.

Again, use of Cashroom services ensures that there is no such single point of failure, and all details are cross-checked and verified, minimising the possibility of human error.

The closing remark from the panel was that often errors made, and claims arising from them, lag behind the event by quite some time. It may be that there are in fact an increased number of claims against the master policy through the pandemic, but we will have to wait and see. We, as a business working in this space, are confident that the profession is constantly gaining awareness on fraud and risk issues, but as ever, cyber criminals and fraudsters are always looking to the next opportunity, and they thrive on change. So, if you are planning to bring your staff back into the office in the near future, beware that any change such as this provides uncertainty, changes of process, change of log in details etc etc.

So please be alert to any unusual activities, telephone calls or emails sent to you or your staff, and re-deliver your cyber, fraud and anti-money laundering training to all staff as a priority.

By doing so, and working together as a profession, solicitors have an opportunity to learn from each other, share information, and create tighter security that discourages fraudsters and criminals.

Take a minute and think, what do you want to get out of the next month? Year? 10 years?

Is it to progress your career?  start a family? Go on luxurious holidays? build a home?

Regardless of the answer, if you ask yourself ‘why’ a few times you will probably come to the answer ‘to be Happy’.

Fame, money, respect, status are secondary in some ways to the reason we want them… Happiness.

Happiness has been described as the ultimate currency. Every pursuit in life, however grand or conservative always comes back to the slightly naive and simple, playground goal of wanting to be happy.  Happiness is an emotion, and, like all emotions, can change on a whim depending on what’s going on in our lives. The Cambridge dictionary defines ‘Happy’ as ‘feelings, showing or causing pleasure or satisfaction’ but what does being happy mean to you?  We so commonly buy into assumptions of what emotions are, we so rarely stop and unpick these labels for ourselves.

We can often see it in binary terms as either, we are happy or unhappy. However, a far more empowering and helpful way of looking at it is seeing happiness along a continuum. Every choice we make being able to move ourselves up or down the ‘Farral Williams’ Chart from weeping in our pillows to dancing in the street.

Are you happy?

It’s a hard question to answer. So many of us strive for this golden chalice but we don’t even know if we have a taste of it or not.

So I want to share a few tips on how we can start to own this elusive, slippery concept called happiness and ensure we are having a piece of the pie every day.

• Think details and rituals: Rather than pinning all your happiness on the yachts, penthouses, and Caribbean islands. Focus on the details, the specifics of the day-to-day that could make you a little happier. Once you know the little things that would add to your happiness then start to ritualise them! This may not sound too spontaneous or fun but, routinely building in activities every day that make you happy, are key to your overall well-being. Ten minutes of reading before work. A cup of tea in your garden. Do an art class once a week. It might not set the world alight, but adding 1% more happiness a day soon has an accumulative effect, more specifically 365 % within a year.
• Pleasure and meaning: For ultimate happiness, we need to think about juggling short-term fun with a long-term focus. Instant gratification is great but too much and it can feel a bit hedonistic and off-putting, a bit like too much ice cream. Having a meaning for the future is also important to spur you on. However, if the focus becomes solely on 10 years down the line, whilst living a life like Scrooge, then that sounds pretty dull too. We need to balance these two components, the present pleasure, and meaningful future, check in with your goals and time use, are you getting a balance?
• Be present: ‘Life is what happens when you are busy making plans’ as John Lennon famously said. How true is that? Life isn’t lived tomorrow, or only on the weekends, it doesn’t switch on at 5 pm Friday then disappear Monday morning to hibernate… It’s right now. In the words of the wise Kung Fu Panda “, Yesterday was history, tomorrow is a mystery, all we have is this present”. The only time we have the potential to be present is in this exact moment as you read these words. So it makes sense the more we tune into this ‘now’ the more available happiness is to us. We can do this regularly with something called Mindfulness training, which conditions our brain to be more present in each moment, rather than caught up in thoughts about the past or the future. So if you are serious about putting happiness firmly on your agenda then prioritising mindfulness may be a wise move.
• Appreciate we are not designed to be happy: News flash, human beings are not designed to be happy we are designed to survive. Think about it, it didn’t matter when we were cavemen and women if we had a big grin on our faces. It mattered that we were paranoid, hypervigilant, and scared because these qualities would keep us constantly on the lookout for dangers and ultimately alive. Unfortunately, these habits have resulted in the current culture of ruminating, anxious and depressed folk. Another way of putting it is that our brains are wired Velcro for negative, Teflon for positive. We simply don’t need to cling on to positive thoughts for our survival, so we let them go!

This doesn’t mean we can’t be happy, it just means we have to work a little harder to achieve it.

So we can be a little kinder to ourselves when we aren’t skipping down the street dancing like Fred Astaire.

• Cultivating an attitude of gratitude: And for those of you that think this all sounds like too much work it may be reassuring to know that a feeling of happiness can be cultivated by simply shifting our awareness and becoming more grateful. More thankful for the little things in a day that we may not notice as we rush around being a great ‘human being’ as opposed to ‘human doing’. Taking regular breaks to be thankful and ‘sweat the small stuff’ has pretty impressive results, taking pauses for gratitude in our day not only improves our wellbeing and happiness but adds an astounding 7 years to our life.

So ultimately, as lucrative as our happiness may sound, it could only be one choice, two rejigs of our thinking, or three moments of gratitude away. Recognising that we are responsible for our happiness and that it is accessible right now puts us in the driving seat to own and ultimately change it.

What change can you make in the next 24 hours to shift you 1% forward?

This article is based on the work by Tal Ben-Sharar, Sonja lyubomirsky, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and my own life experience. It accompanies the workshop as part of the Manchester Law Society, Wellbeing series. You can watch my on demand webinar “ Let go of happy, it’s all about happIER” at www.itsmental.co.uk

Anna is a wellbeing coach, bringing 20 years of experience and a background in Occupational Therapy to support individuals learn the skills to tools to support psychological wellbeing, mental health and long-term happiness. We are proud at It’s Mental to have her on our Panel of Experts. You can find out more about Anna go to https://www.itsmental.co.uk/Anna-croucher

Automating the conveyancing process – a couple of years ago this thought would have made many lawyers drop their jaw and possibly even angered them. How can you automate what has taken years of expensive and difficult training to learn? What an insult to their expert skills and knowledge! Oh no – not anymore.

I attended The Law Society of Scotland’s conference last week and the work being done within the industry and from Registers of Scotland is not only refreshing but is being welcomed. It is exciting and is being seen as a positive change. Instead of coming out of lockdown and reverting back to old ways, the industry is accelerating and pushing further ahead with innovation than ever before.

Why the change in mindset?

Maybe we aren’t scared of technology anymore? We all use it in our everyday life with little problem. Instead of looking at technology development like it is taking our jobs from us and demeaning our skills, our attitude has changed and we can now see that in fact what it does is enable us to do more of what we love and do it better.

Registers of Scotland are working on providing a digital submission solution for advance notices. In fact they were actively encouraging and calling out for firms to test this with them at the conference and said they really are accelerating this process now with a dedicated development team – how refreshing is that! Lawyers for some reason get a bad reputation about being behind in technology and not embracing it but this is definitely not what I saw at the conference and I don’t see it in my day to day job. Yes, there were lots of questions especially around e-signatures but change brings pain and we have all worked through pain in business – it is almost always worth it!

I predict in another couple of years the conveyancing process as we know it will be completely transformed and lawyers and clients will both be delighted with the progress made and how the conveyancing process looks – it will be quicker, there will be less risk of human error and lawyers will have time to offer expert advice without being bogged down with admin work.

Back to my point on lawyers being seen to fear technology. I mentioned Registers of Scotland but I see every day, UK wide, that lawyers are embracing tech. Cashroom has over 200 law firms in the UK using outsourced legal accounting services – these are not firms that fear technology.

Our experts log in and use many practice management systems depending on what the client uses – these systems and the firms that use them do not fear technology.

Our online portal ensures efficient and risk reduced processes whilst reducing compliance worries from the law firm, enabling our legal cashiers and accountants to focus on the expert detail that they know best. The advanced technology Cashroom has enables our experts to do their best job as well as maximising the efficiency in our services – that is exactly what Registers will achieve with their work. If you ask me lawyers aren’t scared of technology – they are embracing it and will reap the benefits!

Emma O’Day

January 2021 was my 10 year anniversary as a Director of Cashroom. I became a non-exec director in 2011, and Managing Director in 2012.

But my involvement with Cashroom goes back further than that. In 2005 I set up a law firm, MBM Commercial, with 3 others, and was Managing Partner for 7 years. Catherine O’Day acted as MBM’s outsourced Finance Director and supervised our cash room. We often discussed Catherine creating a business that would outsource MBM’s entire finance function. In 2008 Catherine took the plunge and Cashroom was “born” with MBM as its very first client.

So, although technically not the founder, I was “in with the bricks”.

It’s been a “wild ride”! When I joined in 2011 we had 3 employees, 6 Scottish clients, and turned over around £100,000! We now employ over 90 people and deliver services to over 200 clients across the UK. In 2021, we should turn over almost £3.5m.

Behind those numbers, the business has changed dramatically. We’ve moved from being an outsourced cashiering service, to a technology driven business process outsourcer. We’ve developed our own technology platform that runs the business. It deals with secure client communication, task management, and increasingly integrates directly with other systems, dramatically increasing efficiency. We are far more “data driven”. Management by “intuition”, is no longer viable (if it every was!), and we need more detailed specialist skill in different areas of the business. Over the next 10 years I’m sure the business will change even more.

When I was at MBM, I acted for a client who was MD of a large utility business. Something he said always stuck in my mind. When hiring, he always hired people better and cleverer than he was. It came back to me at my first Cashroom board meeting (there were 2 of us!). I realised that, if I was to build the company I wanted to build, I needed to do just that. I couldn’t do it by myself.

So, over the last 10 years, I’ve strived to hire people better than me at doing the various things I did as MD in the early days. Recently I’ve felt I was pretty much there, and the way our senior team stepped up to deal with 2020, convinced me of it.

So, in February 2021, I stepped down as MD, and became Chairman. I’m still involved in the day-to-day management of the business (focusing on clients and client relationships), but our “new” CEO, Chris O’Day will take the business forward into its next growth phase.

Chris joined us in 2014 after qualifying as a CA at Deloitte. He started as an accountant in our accounts team, moved to Head of Accounts, then Head of Client Services, before becoming our FD. He knows our business inside out and has a clear vision of where he wants to take the business over the next 10 years.

I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved at Cashroom, and at the risk of sounding “fatherly”, incredibly proud of Chris and the team. I know that the next 10 years will be even more exciting.

I can’t wait to see how things go!

David Calder, Chairman

Who enjoyed the Masters this month? I always think the Masters signals the start of spring, a turn in the weather (for the better), and gives a general sense of optimism about what lies ahead. And goodness, we can all do with that this year can’t we?!

For any golf fan, there’s just something different about the Masters and Augusta National Golf Club. It’s a place of great tradition, always immaculately presented, with a deep history, and conjures up many iconic images of great golfing moments from years gone by. Who can forget the dramatic collapse of Greg Norman in 1996? Not me  – Norman was my favourite player growing up, pre-Tiger, and I was a devastated 14 year old that night! And what about Tiger’s amazing win the following year by a record margin (12 shots), which almost overnight shifted golf from the sports pages onto the front pages, and literally changed the sport and earning capacity of professional players forever. His ‘comeback’ win in 2019 wasn’t too bad either!

I think we all enjoyed the tournament this year, back in its usual slot in April, with some exciting golf over the four days, and Hideki Matsuyama a deserving winner on Sunday evening. His performance over the course of the tournament got me thinking about how important it is in sport, business and life in general, to play to your strengths, and be true to yourself. In other words, as somebody once said ‘be you, everyone else is already taken’.

What I mean by this in the context of Matsuyama, is that he is not the longest hitter (which some would say is a pre-requisite to win at Augusta), he wasn’t top of the stats for greens hit in regulation, or putting (which again, many would think is a requirement to win at Augusta), but nonetheless he’s the one heading home to Japan with the green jacket, and a lifetime exemption to play at the Masters. Oh, and he will also make a few quid from it (with the $2,070,000 winners cheque for starters).

Matsuyama didn’t get overawed by others hitting it further, frustrated at those who seemed to hole every putt they looked at, or by those who maybe came across much more confidently in media interviews. He played his game, stuck to it, went about things his way and held off all comers to take home the ultimate prize – a Major championship. If he had tried to change any of that, or be something he’s not, I suspect he wouldn’t have done so well.

Playing to your strengths or playing your own version of the game doesn’t however mean you can’t look to improve or innovate ‘you’. As I say, Matsuyama is clearly not ‘long’ off the tee, but he constantly looks at ways of improving his accuracy and confidence on the course allowing him to get round his way. I’m told by a friend who plays professionally on the European Tour that Matsuyama is the only player he has seen try 5 or 6 different sets of irons and drivers on the practice range before a round, with a dedicated ‘runner’ between him and the equipment manufacturers’ truck to swap and change clubs for him, until he feels comfortable he has the right equipment for the particular circumstances of the round ahead. Interestingly, although not so unusual, I read that Matsuyama changed to a different putter just two weeks ago.

In the context of running a business, I wonder how many people spend too much time trying to be somebody or something they’re not. Or trying to be all things to all people. I’m not for one second saying don’t try new things, but do that in a controlled way, or for a trial period to see if it is something worth sticking with in your individual circumstances, rather than doing so because ‘everyone else is’. One lesson we can learn from Matsuyama’s Masters win is perhaps that sticking to what you know, what works best for you, what you’ve had success with, and improving and innovating on that, may bring about the best results.

Gregor Angus

Government Funded Support

Many law firms have now having taken advantage of either CBILS (Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme) or the smaller Bounce Back Loan Scheme. However, the real question remains as to what the funding landscape will look like in the months after these Government Backed Schemes come to an end on March 31st.

What we do know, is that the high street banks that have muted the underwriting of bank debt are likely to become more stringent than pre the government schemes. Bank underwriters will be scrutinising affordability assessments more closely, due to most firms having taken on additional longer-term debt via the available schemes throughout the pandemic. They will also be concerned about the level of capital they have almost been forced to provide by the government. I’m fairly convinced that there is concern over exactly how straightforward the government guarantee will be to call on, when businesses invariably start to fail.

Further Challenges

As the repayment holiday periods on these loans tick by, the start of repayments will come into sharp focus for firms who haven’t forecast effectively. We believe that there will be many who struggle with the increased fixed costs, namely PII renewals, which many, including our fellow Calico member Lockton, are predicting due to the shortage of Insurers in the market and the lack of new entrants. We expect default rates on these government-backed loans to increase, leading to high street lending subsequently tighten post CBILS.

We are seeing debtors book values rising and, as gloomy as it sounds, bad debt levels are expected to rise further in line with this trend. Firms are facing fairly sizeable Tax and VAT liabilities due to deferments made throughout 2020, however, not all firms feel confident entering into official repayment plans with HMRC, and rightly so. The reality is that these liabilities need to get paid off over a fairly short term through a ‘time to pay’ plan, an alternative to which is to consider perhaps a longer-term government support loan.

With both the Furlough scheme and the Stamp duty freeze also coming to an end, it’s expected that there will be a short term drop off in the amount of conveyancing work that solicitors have been processing over the last 12 months.

It is, however positive to see that there is already quite a bit of activity on the M&A front. The circa £1m T/O + firms & mid-tier firms are taking advantage of the government-backed funding available to acquire smaller firms and bring in the quality staff & ongoing books of businesses that often come with those deals.

Clearly, this was always going to ignite a jump in new members joining virtual law firms as well as new virtual firms entering the market.

Reviewing Finances & Understanding the Options

Above, I touched on the potential difficulties of direct bank lending post-CBILS. It’s also important to note that two of the largest alternative funding providers to the Legal sector (Aldermore & Investec) have both sadly pulled back from the market with no expected return planned. There are also a couple of smaller mid-tier lenders who have retracted from the sector, drawing some similarities with the PII market.

So, where does this leave us, and what can you do to de-risk your firm to protect against any future downturns in income, increased costs and increased debtors?

It’s clear that there will be a smaller pool of finance providers moving forward, so my first recommendation is to maximise the benefits of CBILS while being mindful of not over-borrowing. You can in fact apply for as many CBILS facilities as you wish up to a maximum of £5m total exposure.

Some providers are offering the ability to settle early without incurring the overall interest cost, and many firms are opting to use CBILS in place of future non CBILS borrowing to reduce interest costs and the need to provide security. However, this is not the case with all providers, so you’ll need to check the terms of the settlement.

Others are refinancing a CBIL (which they have transacted early on with their bank) partly to restart repayment in the interest-free period again, but primarily to switch from a loan that their  primary bank may have held a debenture over, to a loan with a 3rd party provider which is totally unsecured.  Do you mean to restart the interest and payment free term again??

Spreading Liabilities to Reduce Risk

On the point of debentures, I would consider trying to spread liabilities from your primary bank to reduce risk as much as you can. We have seen banks take control of a firm’s finances when they have previously provided the lion’s share of the debt, leaving members with little control and creating high levels of stress and anxiety for partners.

Whilst it might sound a bit clichéd but when it comes to debt, my experience has taught me to never have all your eggs in one basket. With the opportunity to apply for a significant amount of debt via the CBILS scheme, also consider reducing the existing debt levels held under debenture. By doing so, you instantly put your firm in a stronger position. You’ll also have the benefit of having 12 months from now where you don’t have to make any repayments; this will take the pressure off while you may be looking to restructure your operation.

Working with a trusted finance broker who has access to multiple providers and knows the CBILS market could be a useful asset to help you spread liabilities and provide insight into the best possible providers, as each has their own nuances and idiosyncrasies. This allows you to get on with your day to day business and not have to worry about organising the best possible finance for the firm.

There will be a requirement to provide a higher degree of supporting information for future funding, so getting into the good habit of forecasting and having an up to date business plan will really help you when it comes to future funding, in addition to up to date management accounts.

Securing your Firms Future

Moving forward, there will be a growing requirement for equity directors or equity partners to guarantee finance deals if the firm is trading as an LLP or Ltd entity, and no debenture exists.

Shoring up cash flow and having tight controls over what is coming in and going out will be crucial. See Cashroom Services for a robust and efficient system.  Outsourcing your debt recovery work could also be a brilliant move to ensure that you are getting these debts paid more quickly and not letting them run for months on end. Like it or not, more and more clients will be putting off paying bills until they absolutely have to.

Reducing fixed costs where possible is a balancing act(,) but with many now working from home, considering downsizing or getting rid of the office entirely(,) is something that many firms (dependent on the work they are transacting) are either looking at or have already done. Virtual offices & zoom calls, while not ideal, are clear cost and time savers.

Being clear on the potential growth sectors outlined in any business plan is crucial to ensure that everyone knows what they are doing, and therefore, having regular progress reviews to monitor KPIs is also extremely important in any diversification plans.

We ourselves at Acorn are bringing in an Operation Outsourcing company to assist with our growth plans to map out our journey for the next 3 years and clearly define what needs to be done along the way to achieve our objectives.

New Technology

The use of technology has proven itself and will continue to be a critical factor for many law firms in reducing costs and increasing efficiencies. There is innovative tech being developed in all areas, so keeping up to speed with what developments are happening and implementing the relevant technology into different areas of your firm at the right time and in the right way, all needs planning. Therefore, it is crucial to have a key member of the team responsible for ensuring that you stay ahead of the curve on this as, when done correctly, provides a much slicker process.

From a support staff perspective, there are efficiencies in secretarial and document preparation. Our partners, Document Direct, have been extremely successful in this over the last few years, providing ongoing support to a wide range of well established and well-respected law firms up and down the country. It is definitely worth speaking to them if you are restructuring or looking at your costs as this can be an instant cost saving.

Final thoughts

Acorn Business Finance decided early on that we would shift our focus to providing CBILS to as many firms as we possibly could during the pandemic. The knowledge that we have gained over the last 12 months, around both the scheme and the different funders that we have been working closely with, has been invaluable.

If you have a question about any aspect of CBILS, we’d be happy to share our knowledge and hopefully get to learn more about your plans for the future.

Stuart Gibson, Managing Director at Acorn Business Finance

Lawshare, the referrals and support network, run by Full Service, Top 100 Law Firm JMW, has recently turned ten! Having worked with The Cashroom for a number of years, as one of their preferred partners, we thought we’d catch up with one of the Lawshare team, namely – Partner, Peter Finkill-Coombs.

CR:     So Peter, ten years of Lawshare, what an achievement. Can you tell us about the background to how it all started and your involvement?

PFC:   Certainly, I’ve only been part of the Lawshare team for a little over a year now but have long been aware of the scheme and it has been great to work in such a tightknit and committed team, albeit it has been something of a strange year!

I’ve always admired the Lawshare concept which was already on my radar before joining JMW. Like all good ideas, a very straightforward premise. Our members, who cover a broad spectrum, can ensure they assist their clients by referring work to JMW from those enquiries they generate but that fall outside the specialist areas of work their firm undertake. For every matter we take on, at its conclusion, we profit share with the referrer. Whether we open a file or not, we speak to every client and feedback on each enquiry. A point of difference that our members often tell us sets us apart from previous referral relationships they’ve had experience of.

I personally hail from a Chambers background and got to know Stuart (Stuart Cartwright -Head of Lawshare) during my time as national head of BD for Doughty Street Chambers. I was able to supply speakers, including leading Silks, as part of the free CPD seminar programme that Lawshare run throughout the year for its members.

Stuart has been the head of Lawshare since its inception a decade ago but has been at JMW for over 25 years, he won’t thank me for saying that ha ha! Formerly a partner in JMW’s well regarded Business Crime team, Stuart was approached by, our then new, Senior Partner Joy Kingsley to head up her brainchild – Lawshare. After some initial persuading, because I think he loved the cut and thrust of criminal work, particularly the advocacy, he picked up the idea and ran with it. He fondly regales us with stories of the early days, which he describes as running around Manchester with a Blackberry and Joy’s book of contacts! The tech reference rather dates that doesn’t it! I’m sure anyone who knows Stuart will know it will have been a slick approach.

But from small beginnings he has grown Lawshare into the very successful department it is today, dealing with thousands of enquires per annum from members all over the country. When the opportunity arose and Stuart approached me about joining his team…I was already sold.

CR:     Despite the Pandemic I understand Lawshare have reached something of a milestone in last year?

PFC:   Yes! That’s right. We were delighted to announce our 500^th member. We work with so many different firms and individuals it was a pleasure to welcome new start up Capa Law into the fold. As personal injury litigation specialists they wanted, right from the off, to ensure they had a system in place so they could assist their clients in areas of law they don’t undertake. Membership offers that wraparound service in a streamlined way.

CR:     As a Full Service Firm, what’s preventing you from acting for the client in other areas of law though?

PFC:   Very good point! Our guarantee to only act for the client on the referred piece of work underpins what Lawshare is all about. Our members value this guarantee and knowing their client will be so well looked after, almost as much, if not more than the financial rewards of profit sharing. We’ve sophisticated software in place which ring-fences every enquiry and should a client return on a future occasion we signpost them back to the referrer.

CR:     With a department so driven by ‘traditional’ business development how did you adapt during the pandemic?

PFC:   Like a lot of Law Firms and the wider business community for that matter, we were very concerned, not only regarding the financial landscape for JMW and our Lawshare members, but more importantly for everyone’s health.

We’ve developed engrained relationships over the years and look to support our members in any way we can. In the early stages, Stuart ran a regular blog that went out to members. Stuart sits on the board so was able to give insight and share tips from ‘the top’ here at JMW. Despite the broad-church that is our membership, we were unified by common problems, perhaps only differentiated by scale. We were able to provide solutions for office practicalities and make introductions where firms needed to quickly mobilise a workforce to work remotely.

Members were able to tap into our specially selected buying group Lawsave, of which they get free access. Amongst the offerings under the Lawsave umbrella are a number of products and services that all help to drive down the cost and improve the efficiency of running a practice. Members were looking introspectively like they perhaps never have before and outsourcing and online solutions to problems they never thought they’d have. Being able to call on Lawsave and the preferential rates and discounts it offers came at time when the bottom line has never been to important.

We transposed our free CPD seminar programme online and like the rest of the world embraced Zoom and other such platforms like never before!

As the year wore on we realised engagement was up and I think as the public perception regarding a geographical emphasis about where legal services are carried out has helped broaden our reach. Amongst our membership we now have member firms in my home town city of Newcastle, the South Coast, Kent, Essex, Wales and even Spain! We’re very proud of our Manchester roots and needless to say still enjoy a great stronghold in the North West. The advent of our London office (which opened 2 years ago and has over 100 staff) and recruitment of partner Abby Winkworth has only helped galvanise our now national presence.

CR:     So with regards to growing the network, how do people get involved with Lawshare?

PFC:   Very straightforward. Lawshare membership is free of charge with no ongoing cost, nor minimum commitment. We have members who utilise the scheme on a more than daily basis and others we perhaps only hear from now and again. The similarity being is we’re always on hand to service those enquiries in exactly the same way, no matter who they come from and with what frequency. The reason for Lawshare’s year on year growth is down to a few key factors, simplicity, transparency and red hot service levels. Members and prospective members can contact us anytime using lawshare@jmw.co.uk. Where the team will process enquires and be more than happy to discuss with those wishing to join or learn more about Lawshare.

Peter’s direct contact details can also be found below –

Peter Finkill-Coombs, Partner – Lawshare

Peter.fc@jmw.co.uk D: 0161 828 1957       M: 07595 277 843

We spend a lot of time talking to our current clients, new prospects, and strategic partners to ensure that we keep an ‘ear to the ground’ with what is happening in the sector. One theme that we are hearing a lot at the moment, is that mergers are very much back on the radar again. One solicitor we spoke to described it as a time when the stronger players will ‘eat up the weak’! A bit extreme, perhaps! However with continued uncertainty, fundamental changes to the way people work, more changes to PI work in England and Wales, inevitable tax increases in the near future, and a whole host of other reasons, it is understandable that consolidation may well appeal to some firms.

Benefits

By merging with the right firm, you can gain expertise in other areas of practice. Perhaps a geographical reach you don’t currently have, put a succession plan in place for those nearing retirement, and share costs of suppliers, premises, PI Insurance etc etc. So, what are the things you need to consider when choosing a potential merger partner, or when responding to an approach made to you?

The first thing you will need to consider is whether you get a good ‘feel’ for the other firm. A bit vague, I know, but it really is important that there is a good ‘gut instinct’ that the two firms could come together well, that there is a logical reason for it, and that the cultures align.

If you can tick that box, you can move on to some due diligence and valuation work. This is where the Accountants come in, and there will be extensive number crunching to try and ascertain the ‘worth’ of the entities. Regardless of which side you are on, you need to agree amongst the Partners/Directors what your ‘yes, lets do the deal’ or ‘no, thanks ’ numbers are. When it comes to negotiation with the other firm, it doesn’t have to be, and indeed shouldn’t be, an acrimonious process. There needs to be a collective will of both firms to make it work if it is going to be a success.  You will obviously also need to consider how you are going to fund the acquisition if you are doing the acquiring, but that’s a whole different article!

Once a deal is reached, that’s when the hard work begins!

There is a huge piece of work in making the merger a success, and ensuring that the two firms don’t just continue to work in silos, albeit under the same firm name. You shouldn’t underestimate the time and work involved in this. The time and work should be factored into any merger budgeting, if the two firms collectively are going to be better than the sum of their parts.

Work hard at the post-merger integrations of people. Involve specialist business coaches or consultants where possible,. Facilitate specific sessions for the people from both firms to get to know (and trust) each other. For the firm to operate as one business going forward, I can’t emphasise how important it is that the people feel that they are on the same team. It might also be a good opportunity to re-structure the decision-making process, depending on the size of the new merged firm. For example, you might look to move away from collective committee decision making of ‘the partnership’ towards a Managing Partner, or Executive Board, that are empowered to make decisions more quickly.

Systems Technology and Process

When it comes to systems, technology, and processes, again bring in experts if possible. Review what each firm has or does, and how to either knit those together seamlessly, or possibly even bring a new way of working for the new expanded firm as a whole. This ensures that the merged entity does in fact bring the efficiencies and cost savings planned.  Without a specific and well-defined plan on this, both firms will simply default to their old ways of working, and some of the benefits of the merger disappear quickly.

Manage the messaging around brand and culture for the new firm, internally and externally, carefully and constantly. Again, invest in the right experts to help you with this. This means who and what you now are is known by everyone in the firm, and as many people as possible outside the firm. The merger is fundamentally about being a ‘better’ firm going forward, so let everyone know that.

So, there is a lot to think about, and even more to do, if you are going to successfully merge two firms together. However, with significant efficiencies and cost savings to be made, and the possibility of creating a more robust and future-fit firm, it may just make sense for you.

Gregor Angus, Head of Business Development at Cashroom

Common outsourcing worries and how at Cashroom we address them

No longer is outsourcing an alien concept like it was when Cashroom began over ten years ago. However, we are still met with concerns over outsourcing such a pivotal part of your business – your finance function. So, once you’ve decided to outsource, how do you choose from the wealth of providers?

When your client is looking for a lawyer, they want the best service and when you are considering outsourcing you should come to the most experienced and best provider – that’s Cashroom!

We asked some of our clients what worries they had pre-Cashroom.

I don’t like change

Ah that old chestnut! Change can be difficult for everyone, but the benefits gained will outweigh this small period of feeling uncomfortable.

Managing expectations and clear communication are the most important things here. You will receive a direct contact at Cashroom (in-fact we have a dedicated transition team) who can hold your hand during the Transition process.

Keeping everyone in your firm informed along the way really helps with their reservations and fears.

We have onboarded over 200 clients at Cashroom and have a wealth of experience in ensuring the process goes smoothly and is pain free!

Is it better for employees to all be under one roof?

One thing the pandemic has shown us is that we don’t all need to be in an office for a business to succeed and you do not need to employ everyone that makes your business thrive.

By adding a supportive remote component to your current all-star team, it creates a better quality of working life for the stars you hired to do the work you hired them for.

Cashroom help you make the most out of the skilled talent you already have, by providing them with expert support.

Will I still need an accountant? I don’t like the idea of having to liaise with lots of external providers.

Absolutely not, Cashroom can provide as little or as much of your finance function as you need!

We have our own chartered and management accountants to prepare monthly management accounts and Cashroom can seamlessly provide the year end accounts and tax returns too.

Also don’t forget we also do credit control and payroll – in-fact when you think about it doesn’t it make sense to just have on expert provider doing all of this?

I just have greater trust with an in-house team

Cashroom are committed to hiring and training talent that invest in your business and are as enthusiastic as any in-house team. With less plates to spin you have better control of your business.

Trust is one of our most important values. We have monthly awards to nominate staff who display these values beyond the expected level.

We are not a large call centre where you get passed off to any available person. You have a dedicated team that you get to know well. You’ll develop a working relationship with them, just like your in-house team along the corridor.

I will have faster reaction times inhouse

Unlike most in-house teams or some smaller outsourced providers we are a flexible resource. During a sudden spike of activity your cashier may normally get swamped and reactions times may decrease. At Cashroom we can flex our team and provide the extra support needed to ensure everything always runs smoothly.

Think of us as a business partner allowing you to focus on the core competencies of your firm.

At Cashroom communication is seamless, accessible, regular and secure. We use a dedicated Web-Portal, that provides secure communication and a clear audit trail of all communications and transactions so you can see exactly what’s happening and when.

Using Cashroom might just be better than your existing team!

You won’t know our system like an in-house team would

Cashroom has a dedicated team of over 90 experts in accounting, technology and the legal sector and support over 200 UK law firms using the full range of practice management systems. Our teams bring a specific skill set that comes from significant professional experience, which is always developing. We are constantly refining our systems and process knowledge and work closely with many system providers to ensure the best possible software. We can also help recommend the best system for you if you are thinking of changing or are in the process of setting up a firm.

Now what?

Yes, we are biased but you truly are getting the best outsourced legal provider when you choose Cashroom. And if you don’t want to take my word for it then please get in touch and we can let you chat to one of our clients about their experience. Alternatively we have some testimonials on our website. 

There are lots of bolt on cashiering options out there, but don’t you want the best for your firm? 

With over 200 firms of all sizes and doing all types of legal work, we are prepared and ready now to take on your firm’s legal accounting.

Emma O’Day

2020 was a hard year for everyone whatever way you spin it but there is always a lesson to be learned if you look closely enough.

Your worth is intrinsic

One thing that I came to understand during the various quarantines, is that I am not my title or my productivity. I have spent so much time during my career basing my personal value on what I contributed to my various roles, how I was perceived by my peers and the professional hats that I got to wear. When you are forced to revolutionise your standard day from one filled with meetings, events, and projects to long lies, Netflix binges and reading; it can have the potential to trick you into feeling like you are worthless. Once you take the time to reprogramme your mind, you realise that you are worthy of all that you want by merely existing.

This has the power to shift how you view yourself and work going forward resulting in a healthier relationship and improved work life balance.

Change can be good

We all have our routines, and for some of you, the thought of doing something a little different or during your working day might sound like an absolute nightmare. We’ve already experienced so much upheaval, but would you do it on purpose? Each new adventure has the potential to challenge you a little further. It could be as simple as speaking to a colleague you haven’t spoken to in a while, walking down a route you’ve never explored before or trying out a new recipe for dinner. Or you can use this opportunity, like I did, to go for the Nuclear option and push yourself out of your comfort zone. As I write this from my sun soaked terrace, I can attest that it’s little things and the little wins that really keep your happiness topped up.

Try something new and see how you feel. It has worked wonders for me.

Take some time off

Have you taken any time off during the pandemic? Chances are it will be the standard holidays over Christmas and New Year and not much else. You might feel that using your annual leave to stay in your house is a waste and you want to keep it until you can rebook that holiday to Bali. I totally understand that, but our current circumstances are far from ideal and they’re far more draining than we may realise. In turn, it is worth it to take some time where possible to allow you to truly take a break from the grim reality we currently face without the additional pressures of work demands. It is essential to recharge your batteries to serve your clients and everyone else in your life to the best of your ability. My time off allowed me to focus on the positives in my life and appreciate them.

Comparison is the thief of joy

In the first blush of lockdown, I recall the LinkedIn boasts from those who completed courses and training every week. It can really make you question whether you’re spending your time wisely. I feel it’s important not to judge your life journey by comparing it to the destination of others. We’re all on our own separate adventures, we are all experiencing different blows, struggles and impacts from the current quarantine. Each day we survive during this is an absolute blessing and should be celebrated as such.

I’ll be taking these lessons with me into 2021 and beyond. What did you learn in 2020?

Katie McKenna, Marketing and Engagement Director at Casedo

It’s fair to say that we have all learned a lot during the past surreal 12 months. We have learned how to cut our own hair. How to walk in single file when passing other families. How to ration our viewing of streamed box sets.

In business we have learned how to operate remotely from our colleagues. We have used new approaches to technology and developed processes to manage, supervise and support via Teams and Zoom.

For me, one thing that has stood out increasingly has been the importance of relationships.

My job is Business Development, and so creating links and alliances has always been something I have worked towards. It’s true (my FD was keen to point it out!) that the last twelve months we have been more successful than ever at winning new work, and that has been without any of my old style swanning around the country speaking at events and continuing to develop a worrying level of caffeine dependency.

However, I’m more and more convinced that what I did prior to the pandemic has played a major part in the ability to continue to operate and develop business opportunities.

We carried out analysis of the best sources of new work for our business and we found that by a long way, the two best sources of new enquiries were referrals from existing clients and referrals from strategic partners.

We are a service business so the first source is pleasing because it suggests our service teams are doing the great job that I tell everyone about. The strategic partner referrals are slightly different.

We have worked hard to create a network of legal sector specialist suppliers who know what we do and how we do it, so that if they come across a firm needing our type of services, they kindly refer them for a chat. The same works both ways, in that I know what they do, and given the opportunity can similarly point people in their direction.

We very much operate a ‘karma marketing’ approach- do enough good deeds for others and the good stuff will flow back around. It’s not commission based, it is good will based. And that’s where I get to the main point of this article (At last, I hear you cry!).

The strength of the business relationships developed over the years, and in many cases out and out friendships, meant that Teams and Zoom calls worked so much better. There was no awkwardness, and in many ways the fact that we were all desk bound meant we were able to meet far more frequently without the whole “When are you next in London?” type of scheduling nightmare.

We’ve also seen the power of groups of allies. We are involved with more than a dozen different groups, ranging from marketing and publication groups such as Calico Legal Group and Law Firm Ambition, to business networking groups like Northern Legal Alliance and Consortium of Professional Advisors. Joining these groups enables us to share ideas, to be introduced warmly to new friends, and to introduce others. This is old school networking, but enabled and strengthened by the joining of modern remote meeting capabilities with existing strong relationships. If the relationships weren’t there before we moved onto remote meetings, the interaction would not have been as strong and productive.

Law firms themselves benefit from some wonderful group memberships such as Lawshare, Fusion Law, Law South and Bold Legal Group, and we try to support those groups wherever possible. It’s all part of relationship development, and has enabled us to reach a broader potential market via webinars and publications.

One thing we have all come to appreciate is that whilst it is perfectly possible to thrive when working remotely and individually, there’s no need to work in isolation. There’s a real power in collaboration and relationship development, and long may that be the case.

Alex Holt, Cashroom

This is a guest post by Jonathon Bray (www.jonathonbray.com) – risk and compliance advisers to law firms.

1. COVID and financial stability

At the risk of stating the obvious, COVID has presented significant challenges to all law firms. Home working, remote hearings, not seeing clients, executing documents, banking money, declining turnover (in some cases, but not others), and so on.

Although 2020 saw a hopefully once in a generation change to the way we work, in 2021 firms should now have the systems and controls in place to deal with these challenges. When the pandemic first hit, the SRA was quick to say that they were taking a flexible approach to regulation. That wasn’t an invitation to ignore the rules, but it was an indication that they were not insensitive to the unique position that firms were in.

But it’s been almost a year, and we can already see the SRA gradually getting back to regulation-as-usual. They are not going to be particularly forgiving if firms have failed to deal with obvious high risk areas, such as how to supervise remote teams.

We should all be aware of the areas of our practice that have changed, and make sure that we have addressed associated risks. For example, conveyancers are meeting far fewer clients in person. This has significant implications for AML risk assessments and client due diligence. Have policies been reviewed, forms amended, and training given?

The pandemic has resulted in financial struggles for many firms. Town centre practices that rely on regular footfall are particularly vulnerable.

Regulated firms have to actively monitor their firm’s financial stability and to notify the SRA if there are any indicators of serious financial difficulty. Short of actual insolvency, struggling to make payroll and rent every month are obvious examples of ‘indicators’.

Telling the SRA that your firm is struggling is one of the hardest things to do. It’s only human nature to think of reasons for not reporting. We’re going to trade out of it within a couple of months. There’s a big case likely to settle imminently. We can stretch our suppliers.

That is a dangerous temptation.

One way to avoid this trap is to use an objective tool such as this one we formulated last year. This involves planning in advance with a clear head what your triggers for reporting look like. You can then file your plan away, in the hope that you will never have to use it.

2. AML supervision

The last couple of years have seen a step change in the SRA’s approach to AML supervision. It’s fair to say that they were a little slow out of the blocks after the implementation of the 2017 Money Laundering Regulations. Since the new AML unit has been set up, they have become increasingly proactive.

First, we had all those spot checks of firm-wide risk assessments. The profession failed that test pretty miserably. So they are now increasing their targeted approach to supervision.

If you are a firm that is caught by the Money Laundering Regulations, you can expect to receive a letter from the regulator asking to see various documents to demonstrate that you are complying. It’s been over three years since the new Regulations were introduced, so excuses are decreasingly likely to be tolerated.

Whereas the first set of SRA reviews were limited to firm wide risk assessments, we are likely to see increasing regulatory interest in:

• Client and Matter level risk assessments
• AML policies
• Client Due Diligence processes
• AML training records
• Regulation 21 audits

If you haven’t come across ‘Regulation 21 audits’ before, you’re not alone. They are the independent audits that firms have to put in place to make sure their AML systems are up to scratch. The SRA says ‘most firms’ should be doing them. These audits can be done in house by someone who isn’t marking their own homework, or can be outsourced (hello!).

And let’s not forget the vexed question of ‘tax advisers’. There has been a significant broadening of the definition of what constitutes ‘tax advice’ recently. Broadly speaking, anything more than signposting a client where there is a tax implication has the potential to be caught by the Regulations.

The implication is that additional areas of law can easily fall into the scope of the Money Laundering Regulations (and all the compliance requirements). Think will-writing, settlement agreements, pensions scheme advice. All have the potential to stray into the new definition, even if you specifically exclude legal tax advice.

That doesn’t mean you can’t do that work any more, but it does mean:

• Some areas of law will be in scope of the Regulations that were previously not
• Therefore the entire range of AML compliance will apply to those areas (e.g. Client Due Diligence)
• Certain sections of the firm will need additional training on AML systems
• You may have to charge more to make some services viable
• Some firms may have to register with the SRA for AML authorisation for the first time

3. Transparency Rules enforcement

It amazes me that this one still catches firms out. Like them or loathe them, the Transparency Rules have been with us for over two years. They are not difficult to understand or implement. It is easy for the SRA to spot non-compliance (they literally have people visiting firms’ websites to check).

And yet the amount of non-compliance I regularly see is quite concerning. You will have seen reports that the SRA is stepping up its offensive.

It’s important to appreciate why they are so hung up on this. They are being pressured by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the Legal Services Board (LSB), which both have more clout than the SRA.

The thinking goes that the legal services market does not operate correctly, partly because people find it difficult to compare the price and service levels. (Although most conveyancers will tell you that clients have no problems shopping around).

They say that by improving price and service ‘transparency’, this should make legal services more accessible.

The upshot is that we can expect to see more CMA scrutiny, translating into tighter SRA supervision and ultimately more regulatory fines and rebukes.

Be warned: our regulators also have an unhealthy obsession with price comparison sites. They seem to think that these are the ultimate way to improve market access, and are prepared to give away all sorts of regulatory data to facilitate.

Let’s just be aware that these sites are not run for the benefit of transparency (they are lead generation machines), and over-reliance on them will mean that individual firms will effectively be in competition with the huge marketing budgets of price comparison sites. There will be a huge downward pressure on consumer legal services with implications for service levels and professionalism.

4. SRA reporting

The ‘new’ SRA Standards and Regulations rulebook has had a year to bed in and we are seeing more and more firms having to grapple with the broadened reporting duties in the Codes of Conduct.

In short, not only do you have to report ‘serious’ breaches of the SRA rules (as before), but also “…any facts or matters that you reasonably believe should be brought to [the SRA’s] attention…”.

This would include potential breaches that have not yet been fully investigated, as well as allegations of misconduct or other serious issues with other solicitors where you might not have the full picture.

As a result, we are increasingly seeing:

• COLPs having to make SRA reports at much earlier stages than before, often with intense internal opposition
• Solicitors and firms feeling compelled to report others when allegations are made
• Others using the threat of reporting as a weapon against opposing firms (not very sensible)

5. Brexit, practising rights and data flows

The UK’s exit from the EU has had some interesting implications for solicitors. The legal profession was not at the heart of the withdrawal negotiations, but The Law Society did some excellent work in working with the government to highlight the problematic issues.

For the majority of solicitors, any post-Brexit changes to practising rights will pass by without any drama.

For those affected, however, the fall out has been pretty profound. There was lots of scrabbling around at the tail end of 2020 to get European lawyers practising in the UK cross-qualified as solicitors, so that they could continue to trade. Others had to close their doors completely.

If you are a solicitor wishing to practise in another EU country, which was frictionless before 2021, you will now have to check the rules in your destination country. ‘Fly in, fly out’ rights may be affected too.

The other issue which is still to be bottomed out is whether the EU deems the UK to have data protection ‘adequacy’. If it does not, then obtaining data from the EU could become more difficult to facilitate. The UK will be treated like any other third country.

There is also the question of what to do about data between the UK and non-EU countries such as the USA, now that the EU-level mechanisms have fallen away. It gets quite technical at this point, but we have a webinar recording on the topic if you would like access.

If you haven’t revisited your data map (or data processing flows) since Brexit, that is probably a good place to start. This should help you identify whether international data flows are something you need to worry about.

6. Professional indemnity insurance

And finally, it can’t have escaped your attention that the PII market is having something of a wobble. There is lots of anecdotal evidence of premium rises across the professions (not just solicitors) and a general lack of appetite by insurers to take on risk.

This is an existential problem for some firms, particularly those with a poor claims record or operating in out-of-favour practice areas. They simply may not be able to obtain cover or justify the increased cost. Those affected will be forced to close or merge.

New firms are also finding it hard to obtain insurance due to the market squeeze.

There are a few practical suggestions:

• Make yourself attractive to insurers. Take risk and compliance seriously, invest in it, and be prepared to do the hard work to bring about change. Outsource what you can, but make sure accountability sits with the COLP.
• Get a good insurance broker. If you have been with the same broker for years and they have gotten a little ‘comfortable’ placing your business, is it time for a change. It’s not until you get a good one that you realise they are more than just insurance sales people. (I’m not saying chop and change insurers, which can be counterproductive).
• Think about succession before you need to. If you plan to retire in the next 5-10 years, you should be thinking about succession planning already. Is your business going to be an attractive acquisition – if not, what can you do to change that? Is there ‘new blood’ coming through the business? How should you attract, develop and incentivise future partners? Have you thought about employee ownership as an alternative?

Always happy to connect and discuss on LinkedIn or email.

Jonathon Bray, Director

What’s your path out of Lockdown?

After the first lockdown I referenced a Churchill quote. In 1942, after the battle of El Alamein  – he said “This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but perhaps it is the end of the beginning”.

Well – have we finally reached “the beginning of the end”? Are we finally hauling ourselves out of the pandemic and getting back to “normal” – if anybody can remember what “normal” was or is?

Mr Johnson seems to think so. He’s set out the country’s path out of lockdown – but it begs the question – what’s your path out of lockdown?

If I was (still) the Managing Partner of a law firm I would be wondering about a few things.

The first, and most important would be – what are my clients’ paths out of lockdown? How have they been affected by the pandemic, and how will they need to change? That will to a greater or lesser extent determine your path.

For example, I was speaking with a client recently who has a large commercial conveyancing practice. They act for a number of Landlords with portfolios focused on retail and hospitality. They had seen a huge move towards warehousing as a replacement asset class, driven by the huge increase in online retail. So, their client’s path out of lockdown is to swap shops for warehouses. Consequently, their path our of lockdown is to support that move.

Inevitably, an opportunity for your clients is an opportunity for you.

Also, the constant theme I hear when speaking with clients is that “there is a lot of cash looking for a home”. I saw a report yesterday that the country has saved over £200 billion over the last year. Somebody who works out where that money’s going, will have a very busy path out of lockdown!

Once you work that out, I would be wondering how I tell clients that I’ve worked it out!

Or putting it another way – how do I market to clients as we all come out of lockdown? When I was a junior lawyer, I remember my Senior Partner telling me that my practice would not be determined by what I knew but rather who I knew and who I had lunch with. He wasn’t wrong (and I had the waistline to prove it!). But things have changed.

To be fair, they were changing before lockdown, but that change has accelerated. Time will tell, but I wonder if clients and contacts will want to go back to traditional face to face business development activities. They’re incredibly inefficient and time consuming – far more efficient to reach out remotely (!)? I might even lose a few kilos!

Next I would be asking how I‘ll change my business.

Speaking to our clients, there is a clear focus on how they will redesign their business as a result of the lessons learned. A few themes

1. Paper files are dead (if they weren’t already). We all need to transition to case management systems that allow you to store everything electronically unless paper is absolutely essential. I’ve heard horror stories of loading files into car boots and bringing young children into the office to do filing so a law accountant can fee a file!
2. Almost everybody I speak to has embraced remote working, and doubts whether their firm will ever return to having everybody in an office.
3. People are looking hard at business resilience – and I don’t mean disaster recovery plans (although they’re looking at that too). Rather I mean structuring their business so it can withstand sharp drops in income. Their focus is on premises and staffing. Nobody wants long lease commitment or an expensive back office when income is so volatile. I see fewer “traditional” partnership arrangements where partners share profit, and more “consultancy” arrangements where people in business together “share” income (and by that, I mean pay the entity running the business side of things a fee).

Which perhaps brings me to more fundamental re-imaging of the law firm’s business model.

A while ago I heard somebody say that the legal profession needed a Tesla! It needs a new disruptive entrant into the market which isn’t a law firm, and is not “steeped” in the traditional way of running a law firm. Much like Tesla did for the motor industry, that new entrant would approach the legal market with an entirely different mind-set– the mind set (perhaps) of a technology company.

I know it’s been tried before, with mixed success. But timing is everything – and I can’t help wondering whether the huge acceleration of digital adoption brought on by the pandemic and it’s associated lockdowns, makes this the right time!

So, what’s your path out of lockdown?

David Calder

Discussing the positives and negatives from lockdown and managing a firm through the pandemic with valued client Campbell Read, partner at Stewart Balfour and Sutherland.

Living in these uncertain times and with the big shift towards working from home. Either full time or even blended working, 2 days in the office and 3 days at home sounds appealing but presents mental barriers and frustrations.

When you are used to the morning commute to work, getting yourself some morning me time, before walking straight into the working day routine. Next, a face to face team meeting with management and work colleagues to receive your fix of inclusion, recognition and work chatter. Then getting on with your working day as normal, something that you have done for years. Going to the same places for lunch or eating the lunch you’ve brought from home. Abiding by the same rules, time restrictions and seeing familiar faces. Finishing off your day at the usual time, with the normal commute home, listening to music, podcasts or reading your kindle or book, before back home to jump on the treadmill of your evening schedule and family life.

We are creatures of habit and routine, but we only see and feel the realisation of this when we are pulled out of our work environment due to a significant change in our lives, for everyone this has been due to Covid. Our times are changing and we need to adapt.

The arising problems from working from home

By working from home, problems arise.  Many are using the time it would take them to commute to start work earlier and finish later.  As work and home life merge, it becomes harder to switch off. Normal routines have gone.  Checking emails in an evening, or going back to your desk to do more work in the evening, means that other areas of life that are valuable to you get neglected.  You may not be present with the kids or family, you may have stopped doing regular exercise. Work can become exhausting and takes over your life.

Working from home can be distracting.  The home comforts and family can pull our attention and make it harder to focus on work.

Online meetings can be more draining than attending meetings face to face.  Speaking up during an online meeting can also be anxiety provoking.  As the camera turns onto you or your name is highlighted when you speak, the mind can be filled with what if thoughts about what your colleagues are thinking.  The lack of facial cues and body language from colleagues to indicate that they are interested and listening are gone.  Some people end up staying quiet and contributing less, heir confidence lowering as they are critical of themselves for holding back their opinion.

Some people struggle with the lack of simple social interactions about daily life.  The chats with colleagues in the kitchen or while at your desk have stopped.  Some struggle with not getting as much regular feedback from colleagues or their boss about the quality of their work. This can trigger self-doubt and self-criticism.

Let’s start by creating a mindful remote working sanctuary

Working from a home office presents two major challenges: Effectively separating business and home life, and the lack of stimulating social interaction that you would normally have working in an office with colleagues. At the same time, working from home brings numerous benefits to one’s lifestyle, and feng shui can help you make the best of it. Learn how to apply the philosophy of feng shui to make your space an inspiring and conducive environment for work.

Location

An important office feng shui guideline is to have your home office as far from your bedroom as possible. If the layout of your house allows, having a separate entrance to your home office is ideal. If this is not feasible, be sure to create as much division as possible between your home office area and your bedroom; this is the basis of good home office energy.

Inspiring Decor

Plan your home office with your success, well-being, and productivity in mind. Think of specific images, inspirational colours, meaningful career memorabilia, and appropriate decor items that make you feel successful, appreciated, and happy. Since you are working from home, feel free to fully express your creativity in decorating your office. Depending on your chosen field, you need to make sure your home office reflects the energy you want to project in the world.

Air and Light

Be mindful of the quality of air and the quality of light (both natural and artificial) in your home office, as these are two of the good must-haves. If your brain is starving for oxygen and your body does not get enough natural light, you will not enjoy being in your home office no matter how much you love your job. Consider investing in full-spectrum lights and bring at least a couple of air-purifying plants into your home office. The energy of plants will refresh not only the energy of your space but also your own energy.

Be Mindful of Position

Position your desk in the so-called feng shui commanding position to attract stronger and more successful energies to your work area. A feng shui commanding position means you do not have your back to the door; your desk is positioned further from the door and not in line with it. Be also mindful of not facing a wall while working at your desk.

What we Need is Routine, Routine, Routine

Having structure to our days is important.  Getting up at the normal time you would have got up to start your commute to work, allows you time to then add pleasure and fun into your life.  If you know you’ll be doing Zoom meetings for 8 hours getting daily fresh air and exercise is important.  You could go for a mindful walk, do exercise, make a healthy breakfast, even prep for your lunch or evening meal.  Research shows that if we schedule things into a planner, we are more likely to do it.  For good mental health we need a balance of activities that bring us a sense of achievement and pleasure.  Activities can be active, relaxing or soothing, on your own or with other people.  Connecting with other people is good for our mental health, humans are social creatures. Choose video chatting with friends and working out over binge-watching TV shows.

Living life in accordance with all our values makes for a meaningful life.  Switching off from work helps us to do this.  Take short breaks during the working day.  You could meditate, read, go for a walk, get fresh air or chat to a friend.  Once your working day is done, note what you need to do the next working day on a list, clear your head. Prioritise your workload into smaller manageable time slots to prevent procrastination.  Think about what has been good about the day, what you are grateful for, and note what has been challenging.  Tidy your desk, get changed and turn off your work email notifications.  Switch off from work and be present in your personal life.  Do 3 x 20-minute recovery blocks before work, at lunchtime and especially straight after you log off from work.  Focus on calming activities.

Stephen Robinson and Anna Ashworth from It’s Mental

Was getting your tax return complete more stressful than it needed to be? It is never too early to start thinking about next year. Let Cashroom experts remove your tax return stress…starting now!

We launched an additional service last year. Preparation of Statutory or Annual Accounts (depending on whether the client is a Ltd company, LLP, Partnership or Sole Trader) and the Corporation and Self-Assessment tax returns flowing from these. These services are offered to our clients that use us for their day to day cashiering, who ultimately need this work done by somebody to remain compliant. We already had chartered accountants in-house. We also have access to our clients’ books and records (that we also knew to be in good order!) It just seemed like an obvious step to offer additional ‘compliance’ services to our clients.

The service has proved extremely popular since launch, with both existing firms and new start firms alike. To them, it just makes sense to have their financial compliance taken care of in the most efficient way. So, instead of us doing the day to day and month to month record keeping, and then somebody coming along once a year to turn that information into a set of accounts, we can do it ‘under one roof’. It saves the client dealing with multiple suppliers, saves them being asked for information by external Accountants which we already have, and saves us time dealing with a third party who are coming at it from a standing start, given that they may only interact with their client once a year.

The service is also provided entirely by a Chartered Accountant.

There may come a time when we have others working in this team, but for the time being, the work from start to finish is done at the most senior and experienced level. This reduces risk. With full understanding of the specifics of the solicitors’ accounts rules, and the complexities of client accounting that ‘normal’ businesses do not have to deal with, we reduce the risk of mistakes or omissions. We will also, generally, turn a set of Accounts around more promptly. As with most things in life, the quicker you deal with something, the fresher it is in your mind, and the less likely you are to forget some of the details.

Importantly, we are also very clear on where our service offering starts and finishes. If the client requires more specialist advice on something such as Tax or Pensions, we are very happy and proactive in referring them on to a specialist in that area through our network of strategic partners. Again, sticking to what you know is fundamental to reducing risk.

If this service sounds like it might benefit your firm, I’d be delighted to have an informal chat about how we can help.

Gregor Angus, Cashroom

The problem with history is that it takes a long time.

Often it takes a long time to happen, but more importantly, it takes a long time to work out what happened, how important it was, and what caused it. And more importantly – it takes even longer (if at all) to learn the lesson it teaches.

And there was an awful lot of “history” last year!

COVID 19, and the resulting lockdowns blighted last year, and continue to blight 2021. According to the John Hopkins COVID Resource Centre as of mid-January 2021 97m people have had COVID worldwide and 2.1m people have died (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html). World economic output has dropped by 7%, the biggest drop since World War 2.

No doubt, the immediate impact of COVID is significant, but what of the long-term trends. And what of the “unintended” consequences?

In his extraordinary 1998 book, “Guns Germs and Steel”, Jared Diamond explained the impact on civilisation of transgenic diseases jumping from farmed animals to humans. Specifically, the part smallpox played in decimating the native populations of North and South America, making the European conquest of these continents so much easier.

So, in 10 or 20 years, what will we have learned from COVID-19, what might be the “unintended” consequences ?

It appears that COVID 19 was also a transgenic disease, jumping species somewhere in China. That deadly “chance” highlights the appalling damage (not to mention suffering) caused by rearing and slaughtering 80 billion animals a year, so we can eat meat. Might COVID-19 encourage a move to Veganism?

COVID 19 shows how a long term, high impact, yet relatively unlikely, risk can devastate … if it happens. It illustrates how ignoring those risks, to deal with more likely, but less impactful issues, comes back to haunt you. Might it provided us with a terrible “wake up call”, (hopefully) forcing us to deal with climate change?

COVID 19 has highlighted inequality. Inequality between those children who can keep up with their remote lessons because they have a laptop, and those who don’t, and can’t. Inequality between higher skilled workers who can mostly work from home, and those who can’t. Inequality between races, where the pandemic seems to hit the BAME community harder than the white community. And finally, inequality between the rich world, racing to vaccinate their population, and the rest of the world …. where vaccines are too expensive, too difficult to manufacture or too difficult to distribute. Will COVID-19 force democratic governments to do more to address growing inequality?

And finally, in those western democracies the state has stepped into citizen’s lives in ways that would have been unimaginable even 2 years ago – and mostly for the good (or at least with good intentions – let’s not talk about the outcomes!). One lesson history teaches is that, when sates take more control of their citizen’s lives, they give it up reluctantly.

Will COVID-19 lead to more authoritarian states, with greater control over their citizens?

To return to my first paragraph, history will take time to work out where all this ends. Dramatic events can have huge, unintended consequences. That’s particularly true of diseases.

You can draw a line between smallpox and the colonization of the Americas, between the Black Death and the end of serfdom in England, between African’s relative immunity to malarial mosquitoes and the Atlantic slave trade, and between the Spanish Flu, the great depression, the rise of Fascism and World War 2.

History has a funny way of things working out!

David Calder, Cashroom

Is the sales process important to a law firm?

2,000,000,000,000!!  There were over 2 trillion Google searches per day in 2020.  If we’re not looking for it online we’re not looking for it at all.

Once upon a time it was claimed that people buy from people; and whilst this to a small extent remains the case, the truth is that we now buy convenience.  If we do not get it fast these days then we move on, and quickly.

You’ll be a lawyer who gets this; your ‘shopfront’ these days is your website.  You will have appointed a fantastic Digital Marketing agency to design your website in such a way that it makes your phone ring or your email ping!  You’ll have designed a sales process which makes sure that any enquiry is dealt with very quickly!  You’ll not lose any ‘shopper’ to any one of the many hundreds of other lawyers who are just waiting online for your system/process to slip up.

As a lawyer I know that you are rare!  For the majority, sales systems and processes are for shiny sales people selling Double Glazing and Second Hand Cars, right??

Wrong!!

My firm relies on the web to supply 80% of its new clients every day, month and year.  I know that answering enquiries and quickly is critical.  I’ve learned the hard way though.  I had a receptionist who became my ‘Sales Prevention Officer’.

Onwards Answering is my answer to my law firm, I know it’s the answer to yours!  I know that getting that email/phone/message answered and quickly just needs to happen, or I lose.  I know that telling a ‘shopper’ that we can help them before anyone else does is key.  My law firm’s progress is founded on this.

Onwards Answering supplies law firms with a telephone reception and diary management service which will simply improve your firm’s turnover, guaranteed!  A bold statement I know, but it’s true!  Allow them to become your front-line sales team.  They’ll answer all your calls but most of Onwards Answering is designed and is primed to listen for your next new business opportunity.  Our call handlers act fast in dealing with getting your shoppers talking to you, and on your terms. But even that’s just not enough. We’ll become an integral part of your business sales process and we’ll work with you – and even teach you – how to convert leads into new business and increase your turnover, all guaranteed!

85% of all missed calls do not call back!  Let us begin to help you today.

Billy Smith, Director of Onwards Answering