In all businesses and organisations it is more important than ever that clients’ aims and objectives are listened to and met. Where possible, businesses should aim to ensure that the quality of service a client receives exceeds expectations and conforms to best practice quality assurance standards. We are a firm of lawyers and solicitors dedicated to offering excellence in customer care delivering a committed, focused and professional service to companies and private individuals. Only those practices that understand and meet the needs of clients survive in the long term.

A Quality Focussed Service

The Law Society has developed a quality assurance standard named Lexcel, which is a best practice standard designed specifically for solicitors' law firms. The scheme looks at all aspects of practice management and helps to ensure that legal practices deliver excellent client care and consistently high quality of service with best practice in mind.

Law firms that have awarded this prestigious Lexcel Quality Mark have demonstrated their commitment to client care and are authorised to use the Lexcel logo on their letterhead and promotional literature.

What it means for our Clients

One of the key features of Lexcel accredited practices is a focus on client care and customer service. Our law firm has a documented policy for client care which includes the practice’s commitment to provide services to clients in an appropriate manner.

We ensure compliance with Practice Rule 2, which is incorporated into the rules of conduct for solicitors. The rules of conduct and accompanying code dictate mandatory information to be supplied to clients.

Our clients are informed in writing of our Terms of Business, which contains the terms upon which which our instructions are received and costs information before work is carried out.

Costs Information

This quite importantly includes costs information: the basis under which charges are calculated including the best information possible on the likely overall costs of the matter accompanied with an estimate of the time the work is expected to take - be it days, weeks or years. We find our clients are comfortable in the knowledge of the expected timescales, costs and issues at the outset of our retainer.

We commit our service standards to writing. An extract of our Terms of Business which focuses on our service levels appears here.

Personal Service

We inform our clients of and who will handle the matter, including their name and status of the person performing the work and the person responsible for overall supervision of the matter. We are also upfront with in the event of dissatisfaction with legal services delivered and provide our clients with the name of the person to contact in that event.

Complaints

We operate a written complaints handling procedure that is made readily available and accessible to clients when it is apparent that they may wish to have recourse to it. In the rare event that complaints arise, we look to deal with them in a frank and forthright manner and not seek to hide from the difficulty. In addition, our complaints procedure incorporates formal procedures inasmuch as it may not be common sense to identify and respond to complaints. All complaints are centrally kept by the practice for good management and resolution at a high level.

Another key of the key aspect of Lexcel accreditation is ensuring that we have adequate file and case management processes. Central to these processes are the unforgiving maintenance of our clients' confidentiality and standards for telephone enquiries and how enquiries by correspondence and email are considered and dealt with professionally.

Other aspects that are a requirement for our practice management accreditation include:

1. Checking for conflicts between clients, and declining instructions where the interests of one client would potentially conflict with an existing client;
2. Ensuring compliance with the Solicitors' Conduct Rules;
3. Keeping our clients informed of the progress of their files;
4. Strict adherence to rigourous procedures when dealing with our clients' finance;
5. Orderly management and maintenance of files; and
6. Regular file reviews by solicitors not dealing with the matter, at no charge.

 

 

Background to Lexcel

In the first instance, a law firm must have proper structures and policies in place. Accredited practices have documentation setting out the legal framework under which they operate and practices have a risk management strategy or framework. There is one designated individual who has particular responsibility for the quality system. A law firm must be able to show that this individual has sufficient authority and seniority to raise concerns regarding the quality system and to have any such issues resolved. In addition, practices will have a documented procedure in relation to data protection and compliance issues. Practices have a documented policy in relation to the health and safety of partners, staff and visitors to the practice.

In addition, a strategy for the provision of services and marketing must be in place so that we do not stray from our areas of expertise. Law firms develop and maintain a marketing and business plan. Law firms document the services they wish to offer, the client groups to be served, how services are to be provided and the way in which services are designed to meet clients’ needs. These documents are reviewed every 6 months and the reviews are documented.

In addition, financial management is considered very closely before Lexcel accreditation is awarded. Practices will document responsibility for financial management procedures. Practices are able to provide documentary evidence of their financial management processes including annual budgets, variance analysis conducted at least quarterly of income and expenditure against budgets, annual profit and loss or income and expenditure accounts, annual balance sheets, annual cash or funds flow forecast and quarterly variance analysis at least of cash flow.

Law firms document the office facilities needed to provide a service to clients including the use of premises and equipment, including security and related health and safety issues. There is also a requirement that arrangements for clients to visit offices, including reception, directions and car-parking are properly organised. Practices have a plan for use of IT facilities within the practice and any planned change. Our IT plan covers responsibility for IT purchasing, installation, maintenance, support and training. In addition, the current and planned applications within the practice of IT in compliance with all the regulations and requirements.

People Management

Lexcel accreditation also focuses very much on people management as they are at the core of the services we provide. We have a plan for the recruitment, development and welfare of their personnel including likely recruitment needs, whether for the practice as a whole and offices which form part of the practice’s overall business and operational plans. In addition, training and development are high up on the Lexcel requirements. All practices will have procedures to deal effectively with recruitment into the practice, including identification of vacancies, the drafting of consequential documentation, methods of attracting candidates and applicants and selection methods used. All practices will conduct an appropriate induction process to cover the practice’s aims, management structure and individual job responsibilities. In addition, terms and conditions of employment, personal and banking details for all personnel records are provided.

Risk Assessment

Lexcel accreditation also requires supervision and operational risk management. Practices have a written description of their management structure which designates the responsibility of individuals and their accountability. This will be updated within 3 months of any change. There is named supervisor for each area of work undertaken by the practice. A supervisor may be responsible for more than one area of work. The supervisor must have appropriate experience of the work supervised and be competent to guide and assist others.

You can find out more about us and our solicitors here.

What it Means to Us

Lexcel assessment resulted in Gillhams Solicitors and Lawyers being granted the prestigious Lexcel award by the Law Society. For us, this adds up to a consistency in delivery of excellence in our legal services to our clients. More infomation on thew Lexcel standard is available at The Law Society.

We set out to obtain Lexcel accreditation as it is in keeping with our philosophy of setting ourselves apart from the market in providing consistent execellence in providing our legal services and ensuring that our clients' objectives are met. As may be seen above, obtaining this Lexcel quality assurance standard sets in place a rigourous and thorough systems that lead us to provide a superior service our clients.

The award is important to us, because it is a formal reflection of the attitude and the manner in which we manage our work, place emphasis on keeping our clients informed and always act in their - not our - best interests.

President of the Law Society of England & Wales, Mr Ed Nally, said "The achievement of this accreditation should not be undervalued; there are only 46 firms to be awarded Lexcel within London, which places Gillhams Solicitors in a very elite group. I would like to congratulate the firm on this achievement". We are delighted to provide this level of service to our clients.