C Business Development Plan - Family - 2019-2020 2

Business Development Plan: Family 2019-2020

1. Introduction – Current operations

1.1. Key Services Provided

 Divorce, Dissolutions of marriage or civil partnerships.  Financial applications following the above.  S.8 Children Act cases i.e. where children should live and how often they should see other parents/carers along with specific issues such as schooling and relocations.  Cohabitation disputes  Trusts of Land / Joint Property Disputes  Schedule 1 Children Act (financial claims for unmarried parents)  Inheritance Act financial claims (Mark Only)  Mediation (Phillip & Kim)  Collaborative Law (Mark & Patricia)  Pre & post-nuptial agreements  Change of name / statutory declarations  Surrogacy / parenting agreements (new work type)  Living together and separation agreements.

1.2 Structure, People, Roles

All team members are full time unless otherwise indicated. Broadly speaking we have two senior members of the team in each office at partner level or equivalent. The team is now the largest it has ever been – 14 fee earners and 3 secretaries 2 of whom are part time.

Manchester

Head of Department – Mark Heptinstall

 

Consultant Solicitor – Kim Aucott

 Assistant Solicitor – Jennifer Carr 9 years PQE. Due to join 29 Apr 2019.  Assistant Solicitor – Rebecca Muirhead – 8 years PQE. Joined June 2018.  Assistant Solicitor – Rebecca Lang – 7 years PQE.  Assistant Solicitor – Rebecca Meehan – 2 years PQE. Joined June 2018.  Paralegal – Gabriella Basiuk. Joined January 2019.  Secretary – Lisa Tang 4 days per week (3 days - Mon, Tues, Fri)  Secretary - Nicola Chamberlain (4 days - Tues – Fri).

Sale, Oaklands

Partner – Philip Rhodes. Partner – Patricia Robinson.

 

 Associate Legal Executive – Joanne Taylor. Tues, Wed & Fri. 8 years PQE

 Assistant Solicitor – Eluned Roberts. Joined June 2018 to the Manchester office working

4 days per week not Wednesday. Currently on maternity leave, due to return December

2019/Jan 2020 to Oaklands. 7 years PQE.  Assistant Solicitor – Claire Higham – 2 years PQE. Claire has a significant amount of

experience pre-qualification.

 Assistant Solicitor – David Wilkinson. Qualifies March 2019.  Paralegal – Lisa Woodworth.  Secretary – Sarah Grillo. Starts Mid-March 2019.

Overall Evaluation

The team keeps going from strength to strength and there is no sign of that abating. We are busier than ever with January 2019 being our busiest on record for the last 2 years – 52 new matters many of which were active from the start. More and more cases seem to be litigious which is good for fees. Our original fee income estimate for 2018/19 was £1.25M and we will achieve £1.5M by the end of the financial year given the arrival of additional fee earners during the financial year. The challenge will be now to achieve an increased target in the coming financial year although pipeline new matters appear to support this projection and justifies the addition of a new recruit. Who knows what effect Brexit might have generally on our team generally. Will we have another recession? In terms of IT this is still a work in progress. Proclaim has been great for our team in terms of e-sign client care, automating some processes and pre populating some forms etc. MH still working on this although it is time consuming but the benefits are not to be underestimated. Bespoke workflows for divorce, notices of severance, new client enquiries/prospects are finalised and are live. There is more work to do in relation to children act matters and matrimonial finances. We are already well on our way to becoming paperlite but there is more to be done. We should be paperless in due course and team laptops are being purchased to encourage this to take place. MH has been trialling this and it works very well. Video hearings are ahead for the family team and we have to adapt as our ĐlieŶt͛s do to teĐhŶologǇ. MH regularlǇ has meetings with clients overseas or remotely via Facetime etc. Again this works well. We have reduced requirements for secretarial support given how we have embraced the technology available to us. This has led us to be able to promote Lisa Woodworth to a paralegal since last financial year and she has taken this opportunity up and is really enjoying it; she is a success story and positive news for the firm. At present we operate with 3 secretaries to 14 fee earners a ratio of almost 6:1 when taking into account part time working. This is a significant decrease in the support the team requires to work efficiently. In reality this is the bare minimum we can operate with.

1.3 Profile of current client base (age, types, where they live, what they do)

 Our client base is extremely varied given the long history of the firm, the type of work we do and due to the various sources of work to our team.  Historically our clients were from the Sale & South Manchester/North Cheshire area however that is no longer the case. We have many clients particularly from other parts of Greater Manchester, Lancashire, the South East and further afield including the Middle East, Singapore, Barbados and elsewhere.  Our clients include those with little wealth through to multi-millionaire business owners, barristers, judges, other professionals including accountants and a number of doctors. We also have dealt with a number of professional footballers and some celebrities.  Our average case is a family with a house, pensions and other assets worth in the region of £500k-£1M but we often deal with cases with multi million pound assets, including pension funds.

1.4 Top Sources of Business

The majority of our cases come used to be from former clients who refer on work to the team and

whilst this is still a major source of work google searches are really working for us. We believe that

the positive posts that have been added to our google reviews (& others) have had a significant

impact on the amount of enquiries we have received. This coupled with blogging etc. means that

family is often top of the rankings, or at least on the first page when searching for family cases.

We do not pay for google ads like most firms do and we can be proud of the fact that we have

done this without paying expensive fees for doing so!

Other work is flowing through from the LGBTF where we hold a monthly clinic and other personal

referrals direct to each team member.

We receive a steady flow of inter professional referrals (some of whom are also our main

competitors) including:



Weightmans



Laytons



Mills & Reeve



Irwin Mitchell



JMW



Hall Brown



Various individual barristers

1.5 Main competitors

Our main competitors are as follows:



JMW



Hall Brown



Irwin Mitchell



Weightmans



Stowe

1.6 Our approach to Pricing

1.6.1 We offer a fixed fee for a divorce at £650 + VAT + disbursements providing this is a standard undefended petition. This fee has not changed for a number of years but represents the current market rate. Divorces can now be done online via gov.uk so no increase is proposed. 1.6.2 The hourly rates charged were changed last year but had not changed before then since 2014. Complex work or work carried out in the South East / London usually attracts a different charge out rate as is common with other firms.

Current

Proposed

Enhanced rates

Head of Dept

£300

£325

Partners/Consultants £280

£285

£300

(Kim, Tricia, Phil)

Associates

£225

£250

(Jo T)

Assistants

£190

£225

£250

Over 8 years PQE

(Rebecca L, Rebecca Muirhead, Jen Carr, Eluned)

Assistants

£190

£195

£210

Over 4 years PQE

(Claire in this band due to previous experience)

Assistants

£180

£185

£210

(David, Becca)

Trainees / Paralegals

£125

£150

(Lisa, Gaby)

Evaluation – SWOT

2.1 Trends in your market

• Consolidation in the family market seems to have settled down now with no new entrants, firms closing or merging. • Family Arbitration sĐheŵe still hasŶ͛t takeŶ off, Ŷeither has Đollaďoratiǀe laǁ. These do need to be investigated further. • Private Financial Dispute Resolution Hearings (FDRs) are an increasingly attractive option so as to avoid Court. We are experiencing delays/difficulties with some judges as you never know, particularly in Manchester which Judge will deal with your case. • We are receiving more queries about parenting agreements /multiple parent families/ surrogacy arrangements and this needs to be investigated / pursued in the coming financial year.  Our team has a good reputation for the family offering. This is a good thing but also a bad thing as recruiters and other family lawyers are trying to poach out team members daily!  The Family Court is still intending to move paperless and to video hearings in due course. Manchester is the pilot court for video court hearings.  I repeat this comment from last year! Post Brexit Family law – Your guess is as good as  A breadth of expertise/knowledge with a range of experienced fee earners across a split site operation.  Both male and female mediators and collaborative lawyers.  A good level of referrals from existing & former clients.  Increasingly good rankings in Chambers & in Legal 500.  Good links to referrers including financial advisors, other solicitors, barristers, professionals and networking groups.  AŶ eǆĐelleŶt eǆterŶal perĐeptioŶ ǁith other firŵs that ǁe haǀe a ͚ŶiĐe teaŵ͛ ǁhiĐh leads to referrals.  Full service team – including collaborative law and mediation; the team doubling its ADR offering in the past 2 years.  Strong connections to Resolution (PR / PAR)  Excellent google position for family lawManchester which has led to a significant increase in new work. ours as to what the impact shall be! 2.3.1 Strengths (to be promoted and capitalised upon)

2.2 Key influences on the Horizon

2.3 SWOT – our team and the market

2.3.2

Weaknesses (to be addressed)

 Again I repeat this from last year - unfortunately there remains a lack of cross referrals from other parts of the business to our team.  Awareness of litigation risk in particular when dealing with pensions.  Potential risk that ADR is not developed when other work takes over.  How do we protect our google ranking to keep the work coming in?  People being too busy to network and to develop contacts, links and generate new work.  People failing to time record properly – loss of fees to firm.  Maintain links with our contacts with other firms, professionals etc. to continue to secure more work for the team.  Host internal seminars to members of staff to promote our team/put faces to names and to increase internal referrals to us.  To actively market mediation offering and to develop an additional income stream to the firm.  Each fee earner to take responsibility for marketing, developing links with referrers, selling the team and the firm. Regular reports back re activities undertaken.  Collaborative law – there is more work to generate in this area. Patricia Robinson to pursue.  Take up more marketing opportunities / publishing both generally and through Resolution etc.  MH to pursue a further addition at partner level this year specifically for the Manchester office to support a growing team. Discussions are underway.  Fee earners failing to take responsibility for driving work to the firm – expecting all work to be provided to them.  Complacency with existing clients and referrers – losing touch and losing work to others.  Failing to respond to market trends/changes.  Fee earners taking too much on leading to complaints/poor service.  Loss of our google position! Need to be actively blogging and doing more Podcasts, news articles, publications etc. 2.3.3 Opportunities (to be actively targeted) 2.3.4 Threats (to be guarded against)

2.4 Key Conclusions

We are becoming bigger and stronger every year. We have the right people and contacts to continue do well ďut ǁe Ŷeed to ŵake sure that the teaŵ doesŶ͛t lose its appeal aŶd lose its sense of purpose. We work hard, enjoy working with others in the team who we genuinely con sider to ďe frieŶds; it isŶ͛t just ǁork. We Ŷeed to keep that appeal to all of our teaŵ so that when we do attract good people we retain them notwithstanding the number of calls they receive from recruiters!

Strategy for 19/20 and beyond

3.1 An overall vision. Objectives –

Our main objective is to develop our individual sources of work, not just relying on the name of the firm or marketing as this alone will not suffice. Doing a good job, providing a high quality consistent level of service will lead to future referrals and opportunities. This must be combined with networking, building and developing professional links is part of our strategy moving forward. Mediation work is coming in but there is still more to be done and we have purposively taken on another team member to free up some time to allow us to develop the team generally. There was very little capacity to do so this year. Continue to develop proclaim to suit the needs of the team, to save time, money and be greener.

3.2 Development / refinement of services

As above mediation is a key area to develop.

Pursue other areas of new work as identified above.

Patricia Robinson is to actively pursue more collaborative work although not many cases are suitable and even when a case might be suitable it is dependent upon the representative being collaboratively trained also.

3.3 People development



MH has been appointed as a deputy district judge.



Kim and Phillip must continue with their mediation portfolios.



All fee earners to continue with their CPD courses.



Jo Taylor has been promoted to associate.

 Rebecca Lang and Rebecca Muirhead have both expressed an interest in becoming associates with the firm.  Lisa Woodworth has been promoted to be a paralegal with the firm.  Gabriella Basiuk our new paralegal will start her LPC part time evenings or the ǁeekeŶd ǁith a ǀieǁ to ďeĐoŵiŶg a poteŶtial traiŶee iŶ 2 Ǉears͛ tiŵe.

3.4 New people recruitment plan



As above we need a senior team member for the Manchester office.

3.5 Marketing & Promotion



See Action Plan attached.

3.6 Financial Projections, Budgets and Targets

3.6.1

Income (Fees and other) and Direct People Costs by fee earner

 See Attached

Targets for 2018/19

Manchester

£135k (plus £15k judicial fees)

KJA

£195k

£180k

RLM

£180k

JC starts 29.04.19

£150k for 11 months (next year will be £180k)

RCM

£126k

GAB

£42k

Sub total Manchester £1,008,000

PAR

£195k

JET

£108k (3 days, £180k equivalent)

(Mat leave)

£0

CLH

£132k

DEW

£100k

LAW

£42k

Sub total Oaklands

£772,000

Total

£1,780,000

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