IN its first full financial year following the de-merger from Maclay, Murray & Spens, employment law and health and safety specialists, Law At Work (LAW), have posted a positive performance.
The firm, which has offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh, has demonstrated an 11 per cent increase in turnover to £1.8m and raised pre-tax profits by nine per cent to £250,000.
These impressive figures come on the back of a year which has seen heavy investment by the firm in staff, property and IT as a result of the management buy-out in August 2012.
Jane Wright, chief executive of LAW, believes that these positive figures are due to the consultancy’s unique way of working – a fixed-fee structure, yet offering traditional legal firm levels of service.
She said: “It is exciting to see Law At Work doing so well and that a significant number of our new client wins have come from those choosing to leave a more traditional law firm for their employment law and HR support.
“In this challenging and competitive market, we know that there is an appetite for businesses to forward plan their expenditure, while retaining the level of service that one would expect from a leading law firm – highly trained and qualified staff, superior service levels, and professionalism.
“Our results for the first quarter of the new financial year show a continuation of this steady growth in turnover and profitability with a number of significant new client wins.
“Organisations are increasingly moving away from the traditional style of billing adopted by most law firms, and are looking for a better and predictable option which our approach provides.”
Chair, Magnus Swanson, added: “This was an important year for LAW and these are excellent results for the business.
“We have strengthened our balance sheet, demonstrating that we are not only profitable but are well financed. We have built on our previous success in a year of change and significant investment.”
LAW has sustained high client retention rates over the last financial year and still retains its first client from 2001 – Connect Communications. In addition to several large brand name wins in recent months, such as Gala Bingo and Scotmid, the consultancy continues to service more than 250 clients across the UK, with the SME and LME market at its core.
Jane comments: “While we continue to support our core SME client market, we are also very happy to be working with household names like Gala Bingo.
“Clients know that they won’t be billed every time they pick up the phone to our lawyers, so they come to us much earlier in the process.
“Often, we can work with them to help resolve disputes at an early stage without them turning into an expensive and time-consuming claim. This flexible way of working is extremely appealing to small-to-medium-sized businesses.
“Each year our client survey reports over 90 per cdent satisfaction with how we work – that speaks for itself.”
On appointing LAW earlier this year, Mary Waldron, head of HR at Gala Bingo, said: “It’s vital that our busy HR department are partnered with a quality service from people who know our industry.
“LAW provide my team with friendly, knowledgeable and professional support. Whether we’re dealing with general employment law queries or a complex piece of litigation work, the LAW team are always helpful and the response time to our queries is just fantastic.”
Whilst the employment law division continues to increase steadily, LAW’s health and safety department has experienced a remarkable period of growth in the last 12 months, following the introduction of its six core products.
In the future, the consultancy aims to capitalise on this with further investment in its service provision.
Ms Wright, concludes: “With the Government implementing so many changes in legislation, these are fast-moving times for businesses and it is vital that they remain up to speed to avoid any costly mistakes.
“To meet the demand for our growing number of services, we are investing in staff and we aim to launch a new environmental health and safety service later this year.”
LAW currently employs over 25 staff, having recently appointed a new health and safety manager and a business development executive.
It has also just announced a number of internal senior promotions including Margaret Anne Clark to deputy director of Legal Services, working with the recently promoted senior legal managers Daniel Gorry and Gerry O’Hare.
The business is also currently recruiting for an additional lawyer for their expanding Edinburgh office.
PRESS RELEASE issued by The BIG Partnership. You too can post your story ideas for journalists (aka press or media releases), on allmediascotland.com. Email info@allmediascotland.com for more information.
Contact: Kelly Paterson
Phone: 01413339585
Email: Kelly.paterson@bigpartnership.co.uk
