1. Please provide a brief description of you, your organisation, number of employees and areas of work. Wilson Browne Solicitors can trace its roots back almost 200 years, having 5 offices in the county with another in Leicester. We employ approximately 165 staff covering all areas of law (except crime) for individuals and their businesses.
1. When did you first become aware of Coronavirus and what were your initial thoughts?
Like many businesses we were initially unsure of which way things could go. Being ‘an unknown’, everybody was very much finding their way: the government, the ‘experts’ – everybody was trying to plan for something never seen before. In our case, we planned for the worst case scenario and that proactivity has stood us in good stead. .
1. What steps did you/your firm initially take and what problems did you encounter?
In February 2020 we started to lay the groundwork for what is now our Coronavirus plan which we review and amend regularly. We talked about how we would respond:
* were clear that offices would remain open to those clients who needed to visit us (allowing for Government guidelines and social distancing);
* we put in place rotas to facilitate visits to the office by staff, and accommodate essential visitors;
* we recognised that some of our lawyers were vital (what later became known as ‘key workers’) and that we could not simply pull up the drawbridge: the question was how we could continue to offer those range of services in a different, COVID-secure way;
* the business went from having some 24 members of staff with homeworking facilities at the end of March, to 150 by the second week of April 2020;
* we worked as a team and involved everyone, and everyone contributed to finding solutions supported by the leadership shown by partners and the senior management team. Everyone was prepared to do their bit – the ICT team relocated workstation desktop computers to people’s homes (following social distancing, of course) and given the run on laptops and peripherals at a national level, many staff were happy to use their own equipment;
* staff were really ingenious in getting work done and finding solutions : we have had documents sworn over car bonnets, in car parks, across socially-distanced reception areas (rather than smaller interview rooms);
* we adopted Zoom very early on and also MS Teams. Now of course, everyone is using Zoom but whilst others were using it for “what’s in your fridge” challenges and pop quizzes, we were having client meetings for both new and existing clients;
* we produced podcasts and videos with no intention of selling, but purely the intention of offering help, guidance and reassurance;
* the Marketing team were ahead of the game in creating the coronavirus advice hub as a resource for individuals and businesses. Looking at it now, it seems that everyone has a ‘hub’: we can claim to be one of the first, if not the first, at a regional level;
* our Marketing team was also clear and decisive in regard of not “going quiet”: we commissioned new adverts, increased our advertising both online and offline (digital/internet and press) and reviewed our other advertising such as radio, to offer a more reassuring compassionate tone.
1. Now we are slowly coming out of lockdown, how are you tackling this, what are your plans?
Some businesses are talking about “we’re back” – we never went away; we never closed. Our direction to employees and staff was (and remains) simple, if you can work from home then do. If your job cannot be done remotely then you need to be in the office, and if you are going to be in the office then pay attention to the new way of going about things – face masks in reception or in meetings, handwashing, sanitising stations and so on.
1. Have you seen different sectors of law more affected than others, if so, which?
We saw a sudden and steep decline in new enquiries which was to be expected, but humans are nothing if not adaptable, and we saw an equally sharp “bounce back”. Private Client work (wills & trusts) has bounced back incredibly well; residential conveyancing is buoyant; employment work (for both employers and employees) is strong. Some areas have remained largely unaffected, such as clinical negligence, commercial litigation (our large litigation team is back at full compliment and capacity) and many are somewhere in between.
1. Have you seen any positives for you, your firm or more widely the legal sector come out of the pandemic?
Perhaps the time is not right to be thinking about positive aspects of the pandemic and it is still too early to predict what may be around the corner. What the pandemic has taught us (or re-affirmed) is that we have a strong business and we are ‘agile’ in terms of our ability to respond. The firm has invested not just in good lawyers but in high calibre support staff in functions such as ICT, practice management, operations and Marketing and that investment is now truly showing its value.
For our firm we have seen more people working from home, and as mentioned have seen how resilient and ingenious they can be in terms of providing the same service but in a slightly different way How do you see the future for you, your firm and the wider profession?
From the firm’s point of view we remain strong and on an upward trajectory based on a couple of centuries of reputation, and a more recent consistent brand presence, supported by the service that our clients have come to expect, albeit all in a slightly new way these days. We see that continuing, and we continue to attract excellent talent, as do many of the members in the county. We should continue to boast about this brilliant county of ours to attract the talent that we need to the area. We all need good employees, just as much as we need to be able to do business with each other and a collective voice to tell tomorrow’s lawyers about the benefits of working in such a beautiful and varied county would not be unhelpful.
1. Any top tips?
Communicate with your staff, tell them what is going on. Be authentic: don’t be afraid to tell them when you are not sure but equally give them reassurance – they will thank you for it. Keep giving great service, and be there when needed.
1. Any other thoughts you would like to share?
It can be hard in a time of challenge to look too far into the future. This too will pass and whilst we must look day-to-day in terms of the challenges that face us, failing to look at the medium term and what you need to do to get there is going to put you several steps behind. More specifically at the present time ‘hard selling’ remains a bad idea. Our Coronavirus hub was implemented right at the very start of lockdown. This is something that we are very proud of, it was the first and most frequently updated resource of its sort locally. It is, I hope, a good example of putting information out there in an easy to digest format, and clients have remembered this, and associated us with being there for them, and it ties in with exactly the promise that we make day in and day out, which is for our clients, to be #allthehelpyouneed. We’ll continue to do that.
Kevin Rogers is Chairman and Partner of Wilson Browne Solicitors, a past Northamptonshire Law Society Solicitor of the Year winner in 2016 and currently shortlisted for Solicitor of the Year 2020 in The National Law Society Excellence Awards. More importantly to him however is that Wilson Browne Solicitors have been shortlisted for Four Years Running in the National Law Society Excellence Awards for Marketing & Communications, fitting when communication is seen as critical at this particular time.
Kevin Rogers
Partner
Wilson Browne Solicitors
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