Regional focus: East Anglia

'You don't come to Norfolk because you want to go clubbing or see bands every weekend,' says Richard Pennington, senior partner at Ward Gethin, a ten-partner firm based in King's Lynn. Although it may at first sound rather downbeat Pennington's comment is actually no more than a factual statement about life in a more remote part of East Anglia which has been mercifully spared the economic ups and downs of the rest of the country.

A largely rural economy Norfolk has a handful of thriving market towns and is home to several national and international businesses. East Anglian lawyers are very much part of the local business networks and as a proportion of the population they fall almost exactly on the average for England and Wales as a whole (10.2 and 10.4 per cent respectively).

And there is nothing particularly outstanding about the breakdown of firms by size. Of the 1,028 firms in the region, 454 are sole practitioners and 445 have between two and four partners.

Taken together, these two segments account for 87.5 per cent of the 1,028 firms in the region, just 1.5 per cent more than the figure for England and Wales which stood at 85.9 per cent for 2007.

The traditional pattern of work is a mix of private client and commercial work. The area is home to large estates and well-known food manufacturing companies such as Masterfoods which can take crops direct from the fields to the frost chain, and a growing number of retirees to the area has led many firms to develop a specialist elderly client service.

But with residential conveyancing still a major part of their business making the market particularly vulnerable if volume providers decided to turn their interest to the region. On the ground however lawyers remain quite sanguine about the prospect of Tesco or Halifax descending on their patch.

What Tesco law?

'Commoditisation has not really had an impact on the region,' says Richard Barr, Solicitors Journal's 'Tales from Practice' contributor and a partner at Fraser Dawbarns in King's Lynn.

'We have been through a similar experience years ago when building societies started buying up estate agents,' says Barr. 'There is an assumption that some transactions can be reduced to basic administrative steps whereas in reality they involve a lot of work.' That threat came and went, but Barr admits that large supermarkets and insurance companies have huge financial resources and will deploy them in a big way if they set their minds on getting a slice of the high street market.

Like elsewhere conveyancing is regarded as the prime target for non-lawyer led volume providers, but Barr wonders how these providers could simplify the process more than it already is.

'It is difficult to conceive how it could be made even more press button,' he says. 'Already the old paper search forms have been replaced by electronic form instantly processed by computers and much of the drafting is done by computer programs. All land is now registered land and checks are easy to make. The mechanics are very quick; it can literally be done in half and hour. But the hard work is still required: landowners have moved boundaries or built walls where they shouldn't, and what looks like a simple footpath may have a right of way for cars '“ only manual intervention will identify these problems, and the public will realise that you will reduce the stress if you go to a solicitor rather than a supermarket-turned-conveyancer'.

Iain MacBrayne, senior partner at 12-partner firm Hayes and Storr, in Fakenham, favours the personal touch over the production line -style of newcomers.

'We have already been up against firms set up with estate agents,' MacBrayne says. 'They are interested in doing one job but not the next one. It's alright to be having systems but people are more important than systems. Plus in our area we have people in our age group who want a lawyer to speak to.'

Sharon Cambridge, of Kenneth Bush Solicitors in King's Lynn, also agrees that commoditisation and the opening up of the market to non-lawyers is a cause for concern but that, having weathered similar storms before law firms are prepared for this next stage.

'When the conveyancing factories were set up they were able to bring in first-time buyers attracted by low prices, but clients do not tend to return,' says Cambridge.

'Second-time buyers don't go back because there is no service and no continuity.'

More real is the pressure by insurance companies in the personal injury sector, where Before the Event (BTE) insurance has short-circuited access to clients for many solicitors.

'Even where there is no legal insurance in place,' says Richard Barr, 'people will contact their insurance company which will offer to find them a solicitor '“ from whom they will get a kick back if instructed'.

But solicitors are getting wiser and no longer automatically route potential clients to their insurance if they have legal expenses insurance, and are gradually regaining a share.

'When clients come to us they are likely to have BTE insurance and it is our duty to draw their attention to the fact that their claim may be covered by the insurance policy,' explains Cambridge. 'But when you explain that they will be sent to a panel in, say, Bristol, they are more likely to forgo that option and instruct us instead'.

Ward Gethin, a seven-partner firm with offices in Swaffham and King's Lynn, are nevertheless taking a cautious approach to recruitment as a result. For a start, echoing Richard Barnett's comments in last week's Solicitors Journal, senior partner Richard Pennington doubts that he would enter the residential conveyancing market if he were to start again tomorrow. Second, one of their lawyers in the conveyancing department has recently left and Pennington says they replaced the position with a qualified legal executive rather than with a solicitor.

'As a specialist residential conveyancer, your skills are not as transferable as they once were, and we have started looking differently at the sort of skills which we as a firm want to invest in,' he says.

Business development

It is difficult to forecast how the local market for legal services is likely to develop. In difficult times lawyers will tend to develop the commercial side of their practice, on the basis that in good times and bad times businesses always need lawyers.

Already Norfolk lawyers have recognised the opportunities. 'We think of Britain as a service economy but there are large industrial estates around King's Lynn and Norwich,' says Barr. 'And if lawyers are trying to grow their commercial services arm, they should be thinking of being positively helpful to businesses that generate revenues for the local economy, be working with them as partners.'

Likewise Cambridge says that her firm attracts large commercial clients, architects and property developers, from larger cities and from London 'who would rather their money was spent on service rather than shiny new buildings.'

MacBrayne adds that his and other firms have a substantial portfolios of business clients to whom they provide the whole range of commercial law services in the same way the City firms do. 'We also do local property work for the large estates, and local companies which have lawyers in London for their larger transactions come to us for the more general work because we can just pop up to see them in their office here', he says.

Growing talent

Against this background a number of smaller firms have joined forces, either through acquisition or merger. East Anglia (there are no figure are available for Norfolk specifically) now has 87 firms with five to 10 partners (70 in 2006) and 37 firms with 11 to 25 partners (30 in 2006). Eighteen-partner firm Fraser Dawbarns is the result of a series of mergers in the past few years which now sees the firm, which started in Wisbech, with offices in King's Lynn, Downham Market, March and even Peterborough. Hayes and Storr, originally based in Fakeham, now has offices in Sheringham, Holt, Wells, and King's Lynn, and after the latest merger last month has a total of 12 partners and 78 staff.

In most cases these mergers were mostly the result of informal conversations which developed into formal absorptions, but Penington believes that there will be more active consolidations, and MacBrayne adds that local firms must grow to a minimum size - roughly the size of his firm - if they wish to sustainably offer a full range of services to the whole of their community including business and private clients.

Organic growth however seems to remain the preferred option for many firms but the comparative lack of local talent is occasionally seen as a problem. Pennington says his firm has relatively little difficulty in growing like this because, unlike other firms this size, they have always offered training contract, which has allowed them to nurture lawyers through the ranks.

But Pennington comments that retaining younger lawyers can be difficult, particularly if they are single, and that the way of life in Norfolk is more likely to appeal to more senior lawyers.

Recently, Kenneth Bush nearly faced succession planning issues as a few of the firm's senior partners retired, potentially leaving a gap in the management and direction of the firm. Here as well the gap was plugged with home-grown lawyers, but Sharon Cambridge says that it is difficult to recruit lawyers; 'some people see it as a quiet backwater,' she says.

By contrast however, Cambridge says that many graduates who go to local universities are keen to stay in the area and work in an environment where they can make their mark rather than be part of an anonymous team in larger firms. 'The problem is that few firms offer training contracts,' she says.

And therein lies the rub. Norfolk may be a quiet backwater but experienced lawyers are attracted by what it has to offer. All that is required now to attract younger ones is a greater number of mid-size firms offering training contracts and real career prospects. Then maybe there will be bands coming every weekend.