How the firm works

A unique way of working in the legal profession

The firm is run on unusual lines. There is a small office with three or four support staff in Kentish Town, but the fee earners (including the partners) work from home or from their own offices.

The firm currently has 42 fee earners in Greater London, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Bristol, Hampshire, Surrey, Nottinghamshire, Herefordshire, Cheshire, Devon and Liverpool.

Professional independence, yet part of a community

Most of the fee earners are self-employed contractors who set their own hours and levels of work, thus allowing them to pursue their other professional and personal interests.

A few of the fee earners are salaried employees, who will be given the opportunity to become self-employed consultants when they have sufficient knowledge, training and experience.

All members of the firm are linked to the office and each other by a virtual private network that allows secure, easy and efficient communication in all directions.

The prevailing ethos of the firm is co-operation rather than competition and there are high levels of formal and informal supervision and support.

Benefits

There are a number of advantages to this way of working:

1. The consultants have the freedom and flexibility of self-employment with the benefits of belonging to a well established firm with good administrative and professional support. It is a way of working that particularly suits individuals who have family responsibilities, and no particular desire to be a partner in a traditional practice.
2. It benefits clients in that they are able to receive a local service from a firm with a national reputation.
3. It allows the firm to succeed and develop as a legal aid practice in an extremely hostile financial environment.

National computer network

The firm has its own virtual private network (intranet) and a computerised case management system which was developed specifically for it. The work of the firm is divided into units, and within each unit there are one or two supervisors who are responsible for managing the work of the unit. The case management system allows them to look at people's computerised files at any time, to ensure that the firms standards, and any Legal Services Commission contract requirement, are being maintained.

This system would not work for all firms. Nearly all of our clients are locked up (in prisons and psychiatric hospitals) or require to be visited at home (e.g. vulnerable children), so fee earners do not generally need office space for interviewing. The work that we do does not involve out-of-hours emergencies, such as those that arise in practices that undertake criminal defence or domestic violence cases, and we do not have the systems to deal with such emergencies.