Solicitors must stick together

The beauty of conferences such as Central Law Training's one about managing and marketing a profitable private client practice is the prospect of picking up the odd 'golden nugget' from fellow solicitors and the expert speakers in breaks or over lunch. It's something for me to take away and implement in my business.

The motivation for travelling to London was my firmly held view that law firms need to use marketing and, in particular, online and social media forms more than ever to ensure profitable private client departments. I was all ears.

I suppose as I correspond frequently on Twitter with two of the guest speakers, Julian Summerhayes and Kim Tasso, I may have had less to learn than other attendees so my focus was on the (re)launched wills and inheritance quality scheme (WIQS) section.

I like the idea of quality schemes behind the solicitor brand. Indeed, for smaller practices, working from a national campaign via a quality scheme, is a scalable marketing objective.

My firm was one of the first 100 to join the conveyancing quality scheme (CQS) and we are in our third year. A quality mark for solicitors does allow for differentiation between us and other legal service providers.

But the important difference is that WIQS is open to all legal service providers that are regulated by the SRA. Yes, Co-­op, Saga and that bloke with the lorries. Everyone.

Solicitors must stick together. In my experience, they have not been very good at collegiate activity. Inter law firm rivalry has stifled (thus far) many initiatives. Because of alternative business structures, solicitors and law firms now seem willing to promote the solicitor brand despite their rivalry.

The fact that CQS is only open to solicitors is powerful and achieves buy­in from most law firms.

Trojan horse

There is an imperative for CQS as well with membership of lenders' panels. Other marketing groups and mouthpieces can happily coexist, such as the Conveyancing Association, which is open to licensed conveyancers.

But there is no such imperative with WIQS, and the mind boggles why solicitors would want to invite in other legal service providers to re­-enact a 21st-­century version of the Trojan horse.

As solicitors, we are the trusted advisers. There is no need to confuse us with non­solicitor firms. The others, as yet, do not have anywhere near the same level of trust. The regulatory argument spouted at the conference just seemed like a red herring to me.

We should be focusing on differentiation as a profession not being lumped in with any old Tom, Dick or ABS.

By developing our own brands by blogging, writing articles, self­publishing and adding killer content to our law firm websites, we can now more than ever before control our own message.

In the words of a Dragons' Den judge, I'm out.

Paul Hajek is a solicitor and principal of Clutton Cox Solicitors based in Bristol

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