Co-op cautious on expansion of family law service

The Co-op has refused to give any targets for expansion of its family law service, launched last week, or any date for the opening of the first regional office outside London.

Martyn Wates, deputy chief executive of the Co-op, told legal journalists that the mutual was not 'hung up about timescales' for its family service.

He said any extension to the regions would be trialled through bank branches to see if customers liked it.

'This is a great opportunity to challenge the way legal services are delivered in this country and a natural fit for the Co-operative,' Wates said.

'We are the UK's number one professional services firm and we do professional services very well, with quality and feeling'.

The Co-op family law service is based at Paddington and currently made up of 23 solicitors and two experienced case-workers.

Jenny Beck, head of professional practice at the service, said 15 more staff were starting in November, and more would start every month from November to June.

She said 700 job applications had been received.

'We wanted to make sure that we had a very robust start,' Beck said. 'We have a fantastic training programme for all the lawyers that start with us.'

She said the aim was to make the service 'customer-focused', and combined how to talk to people and make them feel comfortable with policy and procedures, and legal knowledge.

Beck said a national telephone-based service would give clients access to a solicitor 'within three rings'.

She went on: 'We have had hundreds of people contact us, and very few of them wanted face-to-face meetings.'

However, if they needed face-to-face advice for litigation, the Co-op could cover 'every single court' in the country. Beck rejected the idea that the Co-op's expansion into family law would necessarily damage high street law firms.

'The high street may find that we've widened the market and there is more food for everybody,' she said.

'We're not interested in stealing work from anybody or closing anybody down. This is not about anyone else.'

Christina Blacklaws, head of policy and strategy, said clients would be able to access the new service from the web.

'A client portal is being built and will be available next year,' she said.

Blacklaws said it was unlikely that there would be a solicitor in every Co-op bank branch to speak to clients, but they might be offered conversations with a 'virtual solicitor', as one of a range of options.

'What we know from our research is that there is an appetite from the public to access services in non-traditional ways.'

The Co-op family service is currently handling 25 legal aid cases, down from over 40 earlier in the year.

Blacklaws said: 'It is really important that we are offering this service to everyone. We may well be the last one standing in relation to legal aid. We need to wash our own face, but over and above that we need to achieve our social goals.

'We offer free initial advice for those not eligible for legal aid, and there will be more free advice on our website.'

She said the new service would 'cover the whole range' of family work from the simplest divorce to the most complex international case.

Blacklaws said 'arrangments were in place' with the Bar and arbitration services to ensure that quality was maintained.

'It's crucial that the baton is not dropped when cases are transferred,' she added.