Senior partner , Underwoods Solicitors

Back of the net

7 May 2014News

Real lawyers and traditional values count for something, decides Kerry Underwood, as he shares in the victory of his local football club

My brief for this column is to be an ‘angry young man’. Leaving aside the trades description issue, I do not feel angry this month. Anyone recently
passing junction 8 of the M1
will know that Hemel Hempstead Town Football Club won the Southern League and have been promoted to Conference – the highest position in the town’s history.

My firm is the club’s main sponsor. We did it because we love Hemel Hempstead and we love football and because we wanted to put something back
in to the local community.

However, over Easter weekend, as the town partied like there was no tomorrow, I reflected on the commercial wisdom of our relationship. As word spread and crowds gathered outside the Vauxhall Road ground in Hemel Hempstead to applaud the
coach as it arrived from our Championship-clinching victory at Hungerford, I wondered whether this would really enhance my firm’s digital search engine optimisation ranking facility. It was a thought that continued to haunt me as a
row of virtual downloaded
drinks appeared.

As the hugs, singing and dancing carried on into the not-so-early hours, I pondered how much better for my firm it would be if we had a few more cyber/cloud clients rather than this traditional emotional nonsense of having most of the town thanking a firm of solicitors, and sharing their hopes and
fears and dreams and problems with us.

The ‘how many clicks have you got today’ spiderwebbing marketing gurus will explain the sheer pointlessness of a souvenir edition of the local paper, with us all over it, selling out and those endless interviews with the local media. Far better to be advised by a computer than a lawyer.

How quaint and old-fashioned? I can see Professor Richard Susskind helpless with mirth at the thought of a law firm being involved in the local community and having real lawyers.

Obviously, all people want is an ‘iPad-app-cloud-click-robot’ to guide them through life’s travails. Who wants a real person who might have picked up a bit of wisdom with the wrinkles and grey hair over the years?

Now, where’s Christina Blacklaws’ number? I must instruct her new consultancy so that I know where I have gone wrong and why I have failed to lose £22m as Co-op Legal Services did.

That’s strange. I can’t get through to her. She must be speaking at the ‘super-whizzo-shiny-new’ legal industry conference, where 300 other people without any clients
sit around and convince themselves that theirs is the
one true way.

Not to worry. I will just
slip back to Vauxhall Road and give that Southern Football League championship trophy another kiss.

We have won. And I am not just talking about football. SJ

Kerry Underwood is senior partner at Underwoods Solicitors

kerryunderwood.wordpress.com

Legal News desk contact: editorial@solicitorsjournal.com

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