What (our) clients look for
As part of our commitment to openness we thought that we would share the views of some of our clients and what they thought was important in choosing and using a law firm:Confidence that the lawyers I use are best in class and have a proven track record -
Both The Legal 500 and Chambers Guide to the Legal Profession together rate us in more areas than any other Thames Valley based law firm. For those unfamiliar with these books they are the encyclopaedia Britannica of the legal world and objectively review all of the UK’s leading law firms. As part of this they evaluate individual firms and lawyers on a range of areas including specialist technical legal ability, professional conduct, client service, commercial awareness/astuteness, diligence, commitment and produce relative rankings.
In these books, we are currently recommended in 29 areas.
The next best law firm in our region is rated in only two thirds of these. Also, 21 of our lawyers are reviewed and over 84% of our partners are reviewed. Two thirds of our partners are marked out as 'Leading Individuals' in their specialist areas of law.
Comparatively these are amongst the most outstanding results of any UK law firm.
The Legal 500 - "many people forget that a lot of the UK’s major law firms are outside London"
"For full-service commercial and private client work, all delivered from a single-site location, the firm (Boyes Turner) is up there with the best that the UK regional market has to offer."
If its good enough for them …
We have experience of working with a broad range of UK and foreign listed organisations ranging from entrepreneurial businesses to some of the world’s largest and most successful multinationals. Household names we work with stretch across most business sectors and include: Barratt, Computer Associates, CSC, Dun & Bradstreet, Ericsson, EDS etc……
Banks remain one of the most intelligent purchasers and users of legal services. We are also on seven bank panels. This is one of the highest of any UK law firm.
A desire to work with people who are genuinely as enthusiastic about what they do as I am about my business and what I do -
In the legal world especially it is the most talented and commercially aware people that time and again provide the best and most effective legal solutions. The benefits of investing in building challenging and rewarding careers is well known throughout the business world. We have consciously set out to do this for all of our lawyers and support staff. In the process we have built what is widely recognised as one of the best UK law firms to work for.
Indeed, the Sunday Times in its Top 100 companies to work for survey said that we were the best law firm of our type (employing less than 250 people) to be at outside of the City. If you include all of the City law firms that entered the competition we were ranked second overall.
Our aim is to further improve on this and at the same time retain our ranking as the best south east law firm to work for (the last two years).
We have also been ranked number 26 amongst UK law firms by Managing Partners' Forum Best Professional Firms to work for 2008 and shortlisted for Regional Law Firm of the Year award 2008 by Legal Business.
Being the law firm employer of choice is an important part of our strategy. It enables us to retain and further recruit the best lawyers in the legal market. The aim is to help our clients be successful and generate a lasting competitive advantage.
I wanted to be able to use one law firm for all of my legal needs and wanted to save money -
The benefits of this approach are well documented. Joined up service, single bills and one relationship to manage all provide clients with advantages that save them both money and time. This means that they can concentrate on doing what they do best, namely running their business and not worrying about their lawyers which is as it should be.
So, how good at being a one-stop shop are we? Well, at the last count our top 100 clients use us for advice on average in 2.9 different areas of the law (i.e. employment, property, M&A, commercial, litigation etc). On average, most leading law firms are used by their top clients in 1.3 to 1.4 areas of law. There is a reason for this and you may want to ask your law firm how successful it is by this measure.
Security in knowing that the advisers I use actually run their business well -
A question many people ask is how do they go about judging whether one law firm is better run than the next? A tricky one indeed as there is little reliable comparative information available either in specialist trade journals or generally available to the public. This means that that this can be a bit of a grey area and therefore not usually part of a potential clients decision criteria.
Traditionally, many parts of the legal industry have hidden behind partnership structures to keep out unwanted analysis of their comparative performance. We do not agree with this and have a policy of openness and benchmarking ourselves against other legal and professional services firms as well as businesses in general. For our development we need to know what we are doing well and what we can do better and do not have a problem letting others know this.
Over the last three years our management team has been ranked in turn by both Lloyds TSB and The Royal Bank of Scotland as amongst the top six best managed businesses in the Thames Valley. Indeed, each year that we have entered The Business Magazine’s Management Team of the Year competition we have been ranked above all other legal and professional services firms. The criteria used this year were “quality, dynamic team management, management creativity, sound financial performance and a strong strategic direction”.
In support of our policy of openness we have for the last five years published a comprehensive annual report. We are one of the few UK law firms to do this and are happy to comment on our strategy and performance. This is rare.
Read a summary of our Annual Report. If you would like a copy of uncovered, our 2008/9 annual report, please contact Katie Rolfe our Communications Manager by e-mail or phone.
