Tom Bridge of QualitySolicitors Stephensons in Wigan, is the third of the three QualitySolicitors solicitors who provided background information for my article for the Internet Newsletter (to be published shortly). Here are his answers:

1 How would you describe your firm – very briefly

We are a foward thinking modern law firm who’s brand value is to provide legal services the way clients want them rather than the traditional model of lawyers telling clients what they can have and how it can be delivered. We are based in the north west of the country but operate across a multitude of work types nationally .

2 How did you learn about QSO?

Initially via an article in the LS Gazette and then via e mail from Craig Holt.

3 What initially attracted you to the idea?

The concept was innovative and therefore appealling to us a a firm . We had already discussed the opportunities / threats of the Legal Services Act and de-regulation.

4 Were there any aspects which were negative or worried you, before you joined up?

Not really albeit no guarantee of success . We took the view that it was a calculated risk worth taking.

5 What is the cost? Has it been recouped?

Not prepared to disclose what our membership fee is but so far have at least covered it .

6 When did your membership go ‘live’?

We have been a member since June 09 . We re-branded one of our offices in Wigan in May 10.

7 What did joining involve – was it a big shift for your firm and its staff?

Initially our membership was simply a referral agreement with membership fees . Not really any issues as we deal with numerous referrers of work across various worktypes. The referrals from QS were centralised to enable management of them more efficiently.

The re-branding exericse was a much bigger issue as it involved a complete re-branding of one of our offices. Change of signage , internal branding , new uniforms for staff etc.

More to the point as we deal with so many different work types we had to ensure that the staff in that office could deal with any type of enquiry across the board . A lot of training was required and a lot of input from the various worktypes.

8. How has being part of the QS brand impacted on your practice?

It has not impacted massively in terms of the fees generated so far ( we have only re-branded one office in one town and we are based across five major towns/ City ) but the major benefit is that it has provided us with a lot of free publicity as we have featured as part of several QS press releases and articles ( eg the wrap around on the latest LS Gazette ).

It has created a lot of interest locally and has provided an opportunity to potentially work with a firm in London on a new QS retail unit in a shopping centre.

The dedicated PI referral scheme will hopefully be a valuable source of PI work once it commences.

9 Are there any unexpected benefits/plus points?

The publicity mentioned above and the potential opportunities that have been created .

10 Are there any downsides?

Not really . Some people on some internet forums have been cynical / critical of QS but that is to be expected as the legal profession are generally resistant to change .

11. Are there any other points you would like to make about the service?

It is a new innovative brand with a real chance of establishing a national presence in advance of the implementation of the legal service act reforms.

Being part of it provides us with a vehicle to potentially compete with new entrants to the market who may well have an existing brand image and large sums of money to finance new ventures.

It is not the only option but we feel it is one which hasa great chance of success and being part of it can only help to safeguard our position

*****

Ton Bridge kindly answering my questions back in August 2010.

Warren Robertson of QualitySolicitors Howlett Clarke in Brighton, is the second of the three QualitySolicitors solicitors who provided background information for my article for the Internet Newsletter (to be published shortly). Here are his answers:

1. How would you describe your firm – very briefly

We are a medium high street practice with two offices covering Brighton & Hove. We act for both private individuals and commercial clients. Established in 1773, the oldest firm in the area.

2. How did you learn about Quality Solicitors?

There was a small front page article about Quality Solicitors in the Law Society Gazette. Being a sceptic I assumed they were yet another middle man company simply looking to cream off the profession but my interest was tweaked by a link they had to Which so I made some initial contact and it went on from there.

3. What initially attracted you to the idea?

From day one they appeared very driven and offered a product fairly unique to legal services, almost a conduit for small and medium sized firms. We have been aware of the threats from the Legal Services Act for some years and had considered various options to try and deal with this. The QS idea is very simple. Get hundreds of firms together under one banner.

4. Were there any aspects which were negative or worried you, before you joined up?

As with any business proposal we looked at it very carefully. We initially joined as members and at that stage it was low risk. Essentially it was a referral organisation and kite mark.

The real decision came when we were invited to become Founder Partners. This meant an expensive markeover and rebrand. If QS fell flat on it’s face we would face at the very least egg on our face, we would have lost a fair amount of cash and would have the additional expense of changing our branding again.

More fundamental though were concerns about losing our identity and the benefit of the reputation we have built up in the town and beyond. After much discussions with QS and other potential Founder Partner firms it was decided to go with Quality Solicitors Howlett Clarke. We would gain from the national branding whilst keeping our own name.

5. What is the cost? Has it been recouped?

It has not been a cheap undertaking! As to whether we have recouped our costs, without wishing to sound cliched we will not know for some time.

The television advertising is due to start in September and the key time for being able to gauge the success of it will be say in six months to a years time when the advertising has had a chance to bed in.

Such advertising works as is evidenced by the success and longevity of the various national PI companies.

6. When did your membership go ‘live’?

We joined as members over a year ago but Founder Partners from May this year.

7. What did joining involve – was it a big shift for your firm and its staff?

It was a massive undertaking for us. A full rebrand of our offices, website, stationary. Every facet of the business had to change.

QS dealt with much of the launch PR. We had our own launch party for clients, introducers, suppliers and other contacts. It was all done in around two months as we signed on the dotted line to become Founder Partners only in March.

Particularly due to the short time it was a big deal internally for the staff so we arranged a full on staff meeting and follow up small group and individual meetings.

The only thing which did not have to really change was our culture. QS is focused almost entirely on being client focused and achieving service standards which is how we operate anyway so aside from having to formulate that into client charters and QS staff manuals that fitted comfortably with us.

8. How has being part of the QS brand impacted on your practice?

As stated earlier our working culture is very similar to what QS are looking for which is partly why they invited us to join as Founder Partners so in a day to day sense not much.

What it has done is make us far more focused on the business side of the practice. Come October next year being good lawyers will no longer be enough as we will be competing with the most successful companies in the country for work.

Companies with bottomless pits of money, collossal marketing machines, massive retail presence, potential client databases well into the millions and at least some with an utterly ruthless approach to wipe out traditional legal practices. By the time that comes around I believe we will be a far slicker organisation and the QS brand will have had over a year to establish itself as THE solicitors brand.

In other words if the brand only partly meets it’s potential we will not only survive the changes but will have the opportunity to significantly grow.

9. Are there any unexpected benefits/plus points?

Not really although early days.

10. Are there any downsides?

No. We anticipate we will have the best of both worlds. We will retain our independence whilst being part of a large national group.

11. Are there any other points you would like to make about the service?

Not yet. Come back in six months!

*****

Warren Robertson kindly answering my questions back in August 2010.

Richard Swaine of QualitySolicitors Lockings in Hull, is one of the three QualitySolicitors solicitors who provided background information for my article for the Internet Newsletter (to be published shortly).  Here are his answers:

1 How would you describe your firm – very briefly

QualitySolicitors Lockings is a High Street practice with offices in the heart of Hull and Beverley. We deliver quick cost-effective and friendly legal services to individuals and small to medium businesses.

2 How did you learn about Quality Solicitors?

Our managing partner Richard Allen has been alive to the opportunities and challenges presented by the Legal Services Act for some time now and we were alerted to the QualitySolicitors project as a result of his research into how to best to meet those challenges.

3 What initially attracted you to the idea?

We were initially attracted to QualitySolicitors through a combination of the infectious enthusiasm of their charismatic CEO Craig Holt and by the fact that the concept of like-minded firms working together to pool ideas and resources to drive a national brand forward made a huge amount of sense. We simply would not have been able to do this on our own.

4 Were there any aspects which were negative or worried you, before you joined up?

There were no negative aspects before we joined up and none have since presented. There were aspects that we knew we needed to get right such as making sure the membership contained the right firms to deliver on our promise but we had every confidence in Craig and his excellent team in bringing the most appropriate firms to the table and that confidence has proved to be well founded and continues to be so as more excellent firms are recruited.

5 What is the cost? Has it been recouped?

For confidentiality reasons I cannot disclose to you what the cost was but I can say that we feel it is excellent value for money.

6 When did your membership go ‘live’?

Our membership went live on 20 May 2010 and our official launches in both Hull and Beverley with Stacey Solomon of X Factor fame took place on 25 May 2010. The launches were thoroughly enjoyed by our staff, our clients and the public alike.

7 What did joining involve – was it a big shift for your firm and its staff?

Joining involved us focusing our thinking on delivery of our customer promises of no hidden costs, same-day response, direct lawyer contact and first consultation free. All our staff know how important our clients are so it was a question of building on our reputation of client focus by obtaining as much feedback as we could from everybody within our firm and our clients and prospective clients with the aim of continually improving on both putting our clients at ease and making our services easy to use.

8. How has being part of the QS brand impacted on your practice?

Being part of the QualitySolicitors brand has, in a short time, very significantly raised our profile locally both amongst fellow professionals from other law firms and disciplines and with our existing and prospective client base.

It has also given our staff a real boost and a feeling of belonging to something big new and exciting and, for much the same reasons, has attracted new staff to come and work for us. The pooling of ideas with QualitySolicitors and the other founder partners has also created a real driving force for innovation. It is incredibly exciting to work with highly talented forward thinking like-minded people.

9 Are there any unexpected benefits/plus points?

By joining QualitySolicitors I feel that we have given ourselves a real opportunity to thrive rather than just survive in the new marketplace that is rapidly opening up.

10 Are there any downsides?

I prefer to look at what some may view as downsides as opportunities. For example some may observe that we don’t have as much freedom as member firms as before we joined. That observation is probably fair but my take on this is that what we still remain entirely independent law firms and what we lose in ‘freedom’ isn’t really that much particularly when viewed against the benefits that will be achieved by like-minded firms pooling their resources and ideas.

11. Are there any other points you would like to make about the service?

I am a big fan of the QualitySolicitors concept of mutuality. This not only opens up the possibility of our firm being referred work by other member firms which don’t do a work type we do (we do a lot of licensing for example which not every firm does) it also allows us to refer work on of the types we don’t do whilst getting a solicitor’s fee share on it safe in the knowledge firstly that it will be done as well as we would do it at our firm if we did that work type and secondly that our client will not be snaffled which I am always suspicious of when we don’t have an ongoing relationship with the firm we refer to.

*****

Richard Swaine kindly answering my questions back in August 2010.

Last year I wrote an article about Quality Solicitors for the Internet Newsletter.

As Quality Solicitors have moved on since then, I was asked this August, if I would write an updating article.  This I did and the article will be published later.

However the responses I got from both Craig Holt and the other solicitors I contacted were so interesting that I obtained their permission to publish them here.

Here are Craig Holt’s comments, responding to my questions in bold.  Note that Craig’s comments were made in early August this year.

Q: When we spoke last year it was in the context of Quality Solicitors as a referral organisation, but you have developed considerably since then.  Can you outline the major developments which have taken place since we spoke last August?

A: As you know, when we last spoke, QualitySolicitors operated as a straightforward marketing collective. Members paid £x which was spread between national and local marketing. Enquiries were channelled through our QualitySolicitors website and were distributed amongst our members.

This was working well enough. However, there was a lingering concern. We were, in effect, operating as a high budget, glorified ‘find a solicitor service’. We lacked the presence to generate real awareness amongst the public.

People came to us because of our marketing and high online visibility when searching for a solicitor. But, and this is crucial I think for marketing collectives generally, when the LSA comes into effect “find a solicitor” type services will become extinct.

Why? They only operate successfully now (in all their guises, from contactlaw & takelegaladvice, to more plain directory type companies of which there are probably hundreds) because of how fragmented the legal market is. “Find-a-solicitor.com”, “search4lawyers.co.uk” etc type services only operate because when people need a lawyer there is no brand name they immediately think of and go to. So they have no choice other than to ask a friend or browse the Yellow Pages or go online and type in “solicitors in Liverpool” etc.

The Legal Services Act (LSA) (due to come into force in 2011) will change all this. The biggest impact of the LSA will be the entry – in a wide variety of forms and demographics – of brands in the legal market.

Whether that is Tesco or Virgin or (inevitably) Co-op and whether there is also a much more visible Irwin Mitchell type law firm brand etc is anyone’s educated guess. But brands there will be (and I don’t mean strong local firms who think, erroneously on any sensible definition of the work brand, that they have a brand as opposed to a good reputation).

These brands will remove the need for people to use find a solicitor type services. They won’t need the Yellow Pages anymore to find a law firm.

It is why there are not really any “find-an-optician.com” type services or why people don’t really look for their bank in the YP. There are brands and people needing the former know of ‘Specsavers’, ‘Vision Express’ etc and will have seen TV ads for Natwest, Lloyds-TSB etc and so have an idea which bank they want.

This is how things will be in the legal market and we took a decision to ensure that alongside Tesco, Virgin and Co-op – say – QualitySolicitors was one of those brands. In fact, our aim is for it to be the legal brand.

That required us to fundamentally alter the basic model of QualitySolicitors. The most effective way of establishing a new “high street” name brand alongside the banks, opticians, travel agents etc is to be amongst them and to have a national physical presence.

We therefore refined the QualitySolicitors model to be more akin to a franchise arrangement. QualitySolicitors members now actually become QualitySolicitors. They retain their name and therefore their own goodwill and reputation but brand as “QualitySolicitors [firm name]”.

There is a consistency to this branding. We opened our first 15 QualitySolicitors ‘branches’ in May to huge publicity. Our next 35 are planned for September and we are targeting 100 branches of QualitySolicitors by the end of this year.

In a few short months we will be catapulted into the public conscious by sheer force of our physical presence alone. This is increased in effectiveness by virtue of selecting members who have good, visible locations.

There is just one firm per area permitted to become a QualitySolicitors branded firm and therefore we have had to not renew the membership of a number of our members either because they were in an area where there was more than one or because we didn’t feel they were of the right ethos to become a QualitySolicitors firm in this sense.

Alongside this our branded members contribute to a much higher budget marketing fund which, included in which is a mainstream TV advert voiced by Amanda Holden which is about to go on air.

We plan to “premiere” the ad on ITV News at 10. The combination of these two strands will, we are sure, prove extremely effective and place us as the first ever household name legal brand. We are pitching the brand at a John Lewis/M&S type demographic. We do not intend to necessarily be the cheapest legal brand – in fact, people will pay more for branded legal services as the Co-op are currently proving in their probate work.

Alongside this we have developed – at the request of our members who were tired of being hostages to fortune of unreliable CMCs over over-priced cost per converted case referral fees – a slot based PI scheme which, unlike the main scheme, is focussed more on generating cost-effective referrals for PI. The details can be found in the brochure – the link for which is www.qualitysolicitors.com/for-solicitors/qspi

In short, we believe we will be able to be much more effective in this (which is to launch later this month) than other marketing collective based schemes. This is in part due to our physical presence which the likes of NAH, IL4U etc lack and have much less brand awareness for their millions of pounds spent as a result.

It is also because we intend to market in a very refreshing way. We have 3D animated ads – similar to the Lloyds-TSB ads – which are far removed from the typical CMC ads. We are confident it will be extremely effective. The scheme will launch in a few weeks having sold all 200 slots.

Q: What is the main driving purpose behind the QS brand?  Is the referral element (which I wrote about last year) still important to the QS mix?

A: Our focus is on increasing the profit of QS branded firms. Our aim is for QS to hold a dominant market share of the legal services market. That would enable each branded firm to achieve, for the first time in legal services, a true dominance in their local area.

One of the consequences of a highly fragmented market is that it becomes very difficult for one firm to really stamp their mark on their local area and because a reasonable proportion of people choose almost at random from the YP etc, even the not especially great firms still manage to survive.

QualitySolicitors and the LSA will change all that. In the opticians market in any town where there is a SpecSavers they have around 40% local market share and we intend on emulating that kind of dominance.

I find the SpecSavers analogy interesting. A straw poll amongst Managing Partners at QS firms recently revealed a significant majority used SpecSavers despite being in the type of demographic that law firms would hope would not use these types of brands. Universally, the reasoning was ease and familiarity. This is exactly the type of “pull” that brands in the legal market would have – to a wide range of demographics and also to SME work….

In terms of referrals, QS no longer “refers” work. We drive our website visitors directly to our members through a search function on our site. Eventually, this will simply be “Find my nearest branch of QualitySolicitors” with ordinary members phased out entirely.

Q: Is the project going as expected?

A: Much better. We are due to launch 35 new QualitySolicitors ‘branches’ next month and will have 100 nationwide before the end of the year. That kind of branch coverage was beyond our wildest expectations. We have received enquiries about becoming a branded firm from over 1,000 law firms since the launch in May.

Q: Have there been any unexpected good things happen or …

A: The level of co-operation amongst our branded firms has been remarkable and surprisingly so. Law firm partners have a reputation for not being able to agree upon anything. Yet when we get together with all our branded firms to discuss innovations and strategy moving forward the level of consensus and idea sharing is incredible.

It bodes extremely well for our future success as a brand which will depend, not just on the advertising and physical presence but on us being at the forefront of innovation and ideas etc.

Q: … unexpected problems?

A: Rebranding 15 branches of major law firms simultaneously was always going to be challenging in the extreme! So whilst there were undoubtedly problems along the way, I couldn’t say they were unexpected!

Q: How many solicitors do you have in the scheme?  Are you still looking for more or is it too late now?  If yes, what sort of overall coverage are you looking for?

A: See above. Our aim for this time next year is for approx 250-300 ‘branches’ providing total UK coverage. We have had applications now from firms in most towns and cities however we have yet to reach decisions in most areas and therefore are happy to still receive applications.

Q: Can you let us in on any new developments in the pipeline?

A: Whilst we generally look for members often in quite prominent locations, we are shortly to open our first bespoke built QS store in a shopping centre in London allowing people to genuinely see to their legal issues whilst out shopping etc. It will open on evenings, Saturdays and Sundays and will endeavour to make accessing legal services as easy as popping into a bank etc.

The QS brand has, mistakenly, been thought by some to be solely based on this model. It isn’t but I think this particular element of innovation is one that may well prove a model for the future.

Q: How will the QS brand help participating forms cope with the challenges which will come with the Legal Services Act?

A: The Act, as stated above, will change to way people think about legal services from a fragmented “how do I find/choose a lawyer” type approach to “which brand of legal services shall I go with”. QS aims to be at the forefront of those brands.

Indeed our strategy is very much centred around being well-established as the legal brand before October of next year. We want it to be natural for people to search out their local branch of QualitySolicitors and in doing so the benefits of the QS brand to law firms become obvious.

My views on the force of brands in the legal market have been well documented. There are too many firms, too much choice and too little recognition of law firms. Choosing a law firm is a chore due to the excess of choice and lack of differentiation.

This makes the market ripe for brands. People would much rather have someone in their mind to use than have to spend an hour or two selecting (with the fear that they may make a bad choice). This is where the power of branding in the market will be most effective.

My own honest appraisal of the situation, prior to launching QualitySolicitors, was always that I could easily see myself using a “Halifax legal services” or “Virgin law” type service – and I’m a barrister!

Q: What are the main dangers do you think, for firms which are not part of a brand exercise such as QS.  Do you have any advice for them?

A: See above! My advice has always been the same. Do something and do it now. Complacency is not an option.

The LSA came about as a result of lobbying by the big brands to be able to provide legal services and yet there is a (naive) hope that nothing will really happen.

The Co-op are inevitably in the market and, properly run, could well achieve a significant market share. They are but one of dozens of new competitors who do not just included retail and banking giants.

It is often said that firms need to be niche to survive – I’m not sure that is enough myself. The brands and new competitors will cover a huge range of products ultimately – not just those most easily rendered to a commodity. They will be attractive employers and thus won’t necessarily provide the poor quality service the profession expects.

Nor, in my view, will it all be call centre driven. There will be branded providers with a branch network so law firms can’t rely on the “face-to-face” advantage.

Nor should firms overstate their “strong local presence”. It is loyalty untested thus far in any real sense and it would be dangerous to rely upon it. Firms should be looking at strategies now – leaving it until next October could be too late.

Ask yourself – if a potential customer can choose between going to the legal desk at their local Halifax, calling into a branch of Co-operative legal services, going to a newly national Irwin Mitchell, calling up Tesco law or doing Virgin Legal services online – what compelling reason would they have to use your firm instead? If you can’t answer that in any other way than “we offer a good quality, personal service” then it is time to start strategising.

****

That was Craig Holt, CEO of QualitySolicitors in August 2019.  Do you agree with his prognosis?  If you are a solicitor, what plans do you have for 2011?

About a month or so ago I was asked by Delia Venables of The Internet Newsletter (discussed in my previous post here) to write an article about the new Quality Solicitors organisation.  The article has now been written and you will be able to read it in the Internet Newsletter September 09 issue (and can onw read on this blog>> here).  However as part of my research I wrote up my interview with Brian Inkster, of Scottish firm Inksters.  Rather than waste it, I though it might be nice to publish it here.  It is written in the first person as Brian speaking.  He has approved its contents.

“Our firm, Inksters, is a small general chambers practice. I am a sole practitioner with one associate solicitor and a trainee, shortly to be two trainees. We do most
things except crime, but it is mostly family / property related work. I also have a specialisation in crofting law.

In January 2009 I met the organisers of Quality Solicitors Organisation (QSO) at a marketing conference in London. It was a chance meeting. At that time they were fairly far on in their development of their new service. After talking to them
we both thought that Inksters would be a good fit for their first Scottish firm.

One of the main things which attracted me to QSO was the quality aspect, as this fitted in with what we were doing ourselves. QSO is much more than a paid for referral list. The company only take on firms who they consider are suitable, and
their work is subject to quality control. This is done by clients being asked to give feedback on their experience, which is done by the head office. If a firm proves to be unsatisfactory, it will be asked to leave the group. I like the fact that there is an independent third party review in this way.

The company require all of its English solicitors to have Lexcel accreditation, however this is not possible for us as there is no similar scheme in Scotland. However the procedures we have put in place satisfied QSO that we were working in the right way for them.

It is very early days for QSO. We joined on 11 May 2009 which was co-incidentally the day they launched officially (although the service had been running in a quiet way before that in England). We did a lot of marketing for them in Scotland which included articles about our membership in the local,
national and legal press.

So far as we are concerned it is a bit of an unknown quantity, and we will have to see how things work out. We are all on a learning curve, both the management and the solicitor member firms. From what I have seen so far the company seems to be well run, and the directors are actively driving things forward. They are also quick to develop and learn from mistakes made, which is very good. It is also good that the MD, Craig Holt, is a barrister, so he understands the profession and how we work.

Potential clients contact QSO either via their website  http://www.qualitysolicitors.com or by ringing their enquiry line. QSO then consider the information provided and refer on to a suitable firm as appropriate. Referrals information can be given either by email or by telephone or both. We
opted for both so we could be sure that nothing got missed. The information provided consists of a summary of the case and the name and contact details of the clients. It is a condition of being a QSO solicitor that we contact the client within a couple of hours of receiving the referral information.

How things proceed after that is up to us. We do not have to take a client on if we feel the work is not appropriate for us, however in that case we should ask QSO to refer them to another firm. This would be a bit difficult for us at the moment of course being the only firm in Scotland!

We have already received referrals, indeed I was surprised at the number we received so early on. Some of them have been converted to clients, other may do in the future None of the cases we have taken on have been concluded yet so we have yet to see the feedback procedure in action.

There is of course a fee payable for being a member of QSO, the details of which are confidential. The cost is in bands depending on whether we want just local referrals or referrals from a wider area. However, the company operate a cost
guarantee so if our fees do not equal the membership fee, this will be reduced accordingly the following year.

The benefits of being a QSO member do not stop at just referrals however. Several firms have reported that they have had clients going to them simply because they have seen the Quality Solicitors logo. The management are also assisting member firms by introducing a members buying group and are currently looking at CPD training.

I have been happy with the service so far, although as I said it is still early days. We will be taking a view generally at the end of the first year.”

Note – to read my article and subscribe to the Internet Newsletter, visit the website here.