Watkins and Gunn
South Wales law firm, Watkins & Gunn were
announced as the winners of the Lexcel Award in Practice Management
at the Law Society's prestigious annual Excellence Awards 2009 in
London.
Their Award was only open to firms
holding the Lexcel quality mark and is intended to award excellence
in Practice Management and the delivery of services to clients.
Watkins & Gunn are clients of
Assessment North East and we asked them to explain the effect that
Lexcel has had on their practice and how they came to win this
auspicious award.
How did you prepare your application for the
Excellence Award?
The application for the Award was
led by Clive Thomas, the Managing Partner, with the assistance of
our excellent Practice Manager, Vivienne Vermeire. However it was
also a joint effort with the other Partners, Jonathan Wellington,
Sophie Hughes and Sarah Williams, all making valuable
contributions. We were keen to highlight how the firm has developed
over the last six years and indeed this is something that the
judges remarked upon describing it as a "remarkable story of
achievement".
What effect has the Lexcel accreditation had
on the firm?
The Lexcel accreditation has been
extremely important in the development of the Practice. With the
assistance of Assessment North East, in particular Sally Johnson,
we have fully adopted the Lexcel model and the ethos behind it. As
a result Lexcel has been a real driver for change and improvement
in standards and consistency throughout the different departments
of the firm so that we have been able to achieve national
recognition by winning this auspicious Award.
What work went into achieving such a high
standard?
We worked closely with Assessment
North East in implementing new Policies and Procedures and ensuring
their use across the Practice by way of a system of monitoring and
file reviews. The measures that we carried out included -
- Re-writing the Office Manual to reflect the Lexcel model
policies and procedures
- Putting in place an improved Risk Management system
- Installing new case management software and improving our IT
management.
- Offering enhanced training opportunities and support for staff
to increase their skill set to ensure a change of culture was
achieved
- Putting in place detailed financial planning procedures
- Developing successful business strategies with measurable
objectives
- Improving recruitment and induction procedures.
- Developing a new interactive website and a staff intranet
- Strengthening our health and safety procedures
- Developing an effective Business Continuity plan
How has this helped Watkins and Gunn?
Since adopting Lexcel we have seen
significant benefits and have made massive strides as a
Partnership. We have achieved -
- An improvement of over 80% in service issue complaints.
- A significant reduction in indemnity insurance renewal premiums
once again this year despite the difficult market conditions.
- Increased fee income and improved the cash flow enabling us to
respond to the economic downturn.
- The ability to recruit and retain quality staff.
- A high level of consistency in work practice and file
management across the firm.
- Increased client satisfaction - with 87% of clients "very
satisfied" with our overall service.
- A reduction in indemnity claims made against the practice
- An excellent platform from which to tender for new work.
- An excellent level of service to all of our clients.
The judges of our category at the
Excellence Awards commented that-
"Watkins & Gunn
has a remarkable story of achievement. Since adopting Lexcel, they
have transformed areas originally identified as weaknesses into
major areas of strength. Their most recent assessment noted no
non-compliances and highlighted a total of 31 areas of good
practice. Client satisfaction is running at an all time high, and
they have consistently increased annual fee income in spite of the
current financial climate"
How did you feel winning the award?
We were absolutely delighted to be
recognised in this way ahead of the best Law firms in England and
Wales. However we are well aware of the main reason for our
success. As our 2009 Assessment North East Lexcel report pointed
out -
"Continuous
improvement and involving people in that process is a key part of
the organisation's culture. The result of this is that the firm
have taken the decisions necessary to manage through the recent
difficult economic climate and be well positioned to develop and
grow out of the recession as the climate
improves."
We realise that our staff are our
greatest asset and that the foundations of our success were laid by
involving them all in the changes that we have implemented and
changing the culture of the firm. We are incredibly fortunate to
have such a talented and hard working group of people working for
us.
The challenge for us now is to not
rest on our laurels but to continue to improve and offer a world
class service to all of our clients to build on our success in an
increasingly competitive market place.