Solicitors that have risen through a
Partnership structure, managed teams
or departments along the way, and
emerged as high level managers of
large organisations. Clearly, this could
not happen unless, to a varying extent,
they have embraced the concept of risk
taking to ensure the business thrives.
At Mayo Wynne Baxter, we have a
management team that is a mixture of
Solicitors and non lawyers. The Board
consists of five Solicitor Partners and
four Directors – Finance, HR, Marketing
and Practice (which encompasses IT,
Premises and Administration). We can
therefore draw on experience and skills
that are not simply legal, and in that way
ensure that our plans for the firm, for
which the team is accountable to the
Partners, are properly thought through
from a number of different perspectives.
However, we are also prepared to
acknowledge that, no matter how
carefully issues are considered, there will
inevitably be times when decisions to
move forward in a particular direction will
carry some risk.
An example of this would be our
expansion in recent years by way of
mergers, leading to us having offices in
East Grinstead, Forest Row, Storrington
and Pulborough.
In deciding to proceed with such
mergers, we acknowledged the risk that
clients of the firms we were merging
with may not stay with us. They would
inevitably have connections with the
people that were in the predecessor
firms, and even though many of those
people stayed on and worked with
us after the mergers, some of them,
including the Partners of those practices
who wished to retire, would no longer be
there. In such circumstances, there was a
risk that we would take on the premises
and the staff, but not have the clients
that would make the offices viable.
Happily, we have seen that such offices
have not suffered from such difficulties
at all. Indeed, we have seen them
grow and, through the investment we
have been able to make as a larger
organisation, have been able to improve
the surroundings and range of services
that those offices have been able to offer.
In Risk Management jargon, we mitigated
the risk of losing clients by concentrating
on the additional benefits we could
offer the clients there, emphasising our
reputation for exceptional client service,
and looking after people that wanted to
use us as their Solicitors.
One risk that we have been looking
at carefully over the past few months,
and which has received some media
attention, is Cyber risk. No doubt some
of you will have seen reports of people
involved in moving home that have
been the targets of frauds in which their
e-mails have been intercepted or their
e-mail accounts have been hacked, as a
consequence of which e-mails purporting
to be from their Solicitors hav e set out
a fraudster’s bank details instead of the
firm’s bank details, and the clients have
paid money to the fraudster’s account
which is then lost for ever. When we
became aware of this type of fraud, we
instigated a policy whereby all bank
details would be given or checked via
phone or post rather than e-mail. We
will soon also be introducing a secure
portal system so that communications
with clients can, where appropriate, be
sent via a secure system to which people
log in rather than e-mail. However, we
are not complacent, and will continue
to work on making all aspects of our IT
system ever more secure.
In reality, risks are part of business, as
they are part of life. It is part of our work
as a firm of Solicitors to advise clients on
the risks we see, and on actions that can
be taken to address them, but no-one
has a crystal ball and some risks will
always need to be accepted. Indeed, that
is part of what makes running a business
fun; seeing that slightly off the wall
decision lead to success in a way you
never envisaged.
Now, what did I do with that business
plan for a café in the Brighton
office………?
By Chris Randall
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