Martyn has been Practice Manager at Breeze and Wyles Solicitors LLP since the start of 2000 and has overseen the substantial growth of the firm since then. Martyn’s responsibilities range from planning for the future of the business to day-to-day administration. He is the Head of the Administration Department which deals with the Firm’s premises, people, IT systems and accounts; he is also the Firm’s Money Laundering Reporting Officer.

How would others describe you in three words?
I asked some others and quite a few 'three worders' came back.  Of the printable ones some made me feel quite humble.  The one I preferred - and would like to live up to - was 'Leads by example'

What has been your best professional moment to date?
When I worked as the listing officer at Birmingham Crown Court, I had listed a serious case when all of the witnesses were available but leading Counsel for the defence was due to appear in another matter at the same time and wasn't therefore available.  Counsel applied to the Judge to have the matter removed from the list on the basis that the defendant was entitled to Counsel of his choice.

I was in Court to hear what was said and my heart sank when I heard the Judge say "Yes Mr XXXX, I agree that your client is entitled to Counsel of his choice" but I could barely suppress a giggle when he added "but not necessarily of his first choice!" and refused the application - Don't you just love High Court Judges?

Probably the best of all is the way that Breeze & Wyles has developed during the time that I have been here. It's great to see how the firm has changed and developed over the years, and I would like to think that I have had something to do with that.

What has been your worst/most embarrassing professional moment to date?
Having to shrink the size of the firm during the recession.  We had to lose some good people.  There were many who helped out by agreeing to work shorter hours so that we were able to retain most of the excellent talent that we have, but it wasn't pleasant for a while.

Thank goodness that the worst seems to be over and we can get on with running a successful business again.  I am looking forward over the next year to significantly improving the service that we give to our clients.

Tell us about one surprising thing you’ve learned since becoming Practice Manager?
That my ambitions at school didn't include being appointed as a Money Laundering Reporting Officer and that influencing Partners is a bit like juggling with Jelly (oops, that's two!)

If you hadn't chosen Law, what do you think you'd be doing with your life?
I would like to train as a professional Mountain Guide. The call of the mountains is strong and it would be great to pass on a little of my enthusiasm and see others enjoying the mountains as much as I do.

If we looked in your desk’s top drawer, what would we find?
I've just looked and it's pretty boring - just office stationery. There is a dictionary and a Thesaurus though.

Tracey Calvert is a highly experienced regulatory compliance specialist with extensive knowledge of legal ethics, professional conduct, financial services and anti-money laundering regulation. She has been the owner and director of Oakalls Consultancy Limited since 2009.

A senior SRA executive recently described the legal landscape in Shakespearian terms as a “brave new world”.  To add a touch of realism I’d rely on Darwin’s observation and say that it is not the strongest of the species  in this new world that will survive,  but the ones who are most responsive to change.

Head in the sand, and an attitude that it will all go away, is not an option whereas a little bit of navel- gazing will do wonders at this moment in time.

It is true that times are changing. It’s a different and more competitive marketplace now. The SRA has started to accept applications from prospective Alternative Business Structures (not Tesco, but the Co-Op and DAS are amongst the first applicants) and it’s likely that these new boys will be launching their own legal services models in the next few months. The SRA has also changed its approach to regulation with the launch of a new Handbook last year. It’s not just any old rule book (in fact it’s not all rules) but is instead the regulator’s toolkit with which to introduce outcomes-focused regulation (OFR) and risk-based regulation.  It also enables the SRA to complete its realignment as an entity-based regulator able to consider everyone working within a law firm and ensure that firms focus on effective management and risk management.

Firms should already  be considering their existing ways of working and asking themselves whether they are fit for purpose in this new world. Firms with quality standards, such as ISO9001 and Lexcel, have a good foundation but should not be complacent. The SRA has warned against firms falling into “unthinking compliance” or “compliance painting by numbers”. Instead, firms must consider what makes them unique – their business model, clients, work – and plan accordingly.

And this revolution is on-going. The next step is the appointment of compliance officers – one for legal practice (your COLP) and one for finance and administration (your COFA). Firms need to notify the SRA of their nominees by 31 March 2012 and appointments will be confirmed by 31 October 2012. Again, the SRA has issued warnings. They say that these roles are essential for the successful operation of OFR and that they will want to see officers with “sufficient resources, seniority and unambiguous championing from those running the firm….firms that fail to do this will be running a serious regulatory risk”.

So the message is clear: a fuss-free relationship with the regulator requires some regulatory navel- gazing to ensure that you have demonstrable systems in place to reflect and manage your regulatory risks. Careful consideration must be given to your compliance officer appointments. They shouldn’t be there in name only but should be playing a full and well-supported role in your regulatory functions.    If you haven’t started to plan for this, time is of the essence and it is time well-spent. The legal world is changing and only those who make changes will survive.

In the Chair this week features Paul Lowe, Operations Director of Darbys Solicitors LLP, a 21 partner firm in Oxford (Thame and Manchester).  Paul has been with Darbys for 30 plus years and is also the Chairman of the highly prestigious Oxfordshire Business Awards. Paul has been Chair of the LawNet Practice Management group for 8 years.

He loves all sport, particularly football and cricket. He has been a supporter of Oxford United for the last 40 years and is also a former director of Oxford United.

How would others describe you in three words?
Practical, willing and fair.

What has been your best professional moment to date?
Appearing at the European Court of Human Rights - twice. The first time was in the usual Chamber before 7 Judges and the second in the Grand Chamber before 17 Judges.

What has been your worst/most embarrassing professional moment to date?
Losing in the House of Lords 5-0 and the Grand Chamber of the European Court 10-7. On both occasions I was more upset /devastated than the client.

Tell us about one surprising thing you’ve learned since becoming Director of Operations?  
The variety of the job. No one day is the same.

If you hadn't chosen Law, what do you think you'd be doing with your life?
I would have loved to have been a professional footballer but was never good enough. I love sport particularly football and cricket, so some sort of sports commentator would have been great.

If we looked in your desk’s top drawer, what would we find?
Too many things to mention. I am a hoarder and my top drawer is symptomatic of this bad habit.

Ray Crudgington is managing partner of LawNet’s newest member firm, Grant Saw LLP in south east London – the fifth to join in the past 12 months.

 Employing 20 lawyers and with five partners, Grant Saw provides legal services to a private and corporate customer base across south east London and the Docklands and has ambitions to significantly increase its share of commercial work.

Ray explains why they chose to join LawNet:

“Now seemed the right time to join LawNet for us.  We’ve got serious ambitions to grow the firm and want to significantly increase our share of commercial work.   By joining LawNet we see it as offering us an opportunity to grow, by learning from other larger firms, sharing resources and cutting our internal costs through group discounted services.

Over the last few years we have made a concerted effort to expand.  We moved into some modern offices in 2003, got our first web site running in 2005 and then secured Lexcel in 2007.  We did all that and then, like most of the sector, went into recession survival mode for a while.

But then you look around and see the changes coming in around ABS and everything that we’re all contending with and we started thinking about how strategic partnerships might provide value.  We want to ramp up on both contentious and non contentious commercial work, and particularly company commercial, and need to find the route to achieve that.

We had had some discussions with LawNet once before, but we were in the process of merging with another firm and it didn’t feel the right time.  We were in a state of change, not sure what we’d look like at the other end and certainly a smaller player by comparison with others in the network.

We investigated other networks and collaborative initiatives, and trialled one for a year to see how it might help our ambitions.  In the end we reached the conclusion that it wasn’t going to be right for us.

So that’s when we came back to talk to LawNet.  There are larger firms than us in the network, and that matches our aspirations.  Seeing what we get, we were really impressed.

Lawnet appears to be lawyer driven.  We like the not-for-profit model and the fact that any surplus gets ploughed back into member services.   The collective bargaining power brings real cost benefits; and these are all firms that we wish to be associated with.

We want to be around bigger firms to learn from them.  There’s a risk in being one of the larger fish in your own pond, that you start thinking the others on your patch are your competition, but you need to have a bigger picture and look at what is being done at the level where you are really competing.

We are very committed to best practice and think it is vital for our future success.  Customer service is important – if we do things well, the client will see the benefit.  But we need to explore new ways of doing things and that’s where it becomes important to speak with other law firms and other lawyers in a non competing environment.   The chance to do that is limited elsewhere.

We want to share resources and grow.   That’s what we’re looking to achieve by being part of LawNet."

More about the author:

Ray Crudgington: Managing Partner and Head of Commercial & Probate Departments at LawNet member firm Grant Saw LLP.  Ray qualified as a solicitor in 1991 after graduating from Leicester University and training with a major City firm. Since qualifying he has dealt mainly with company/commercial work and commercial property. He joined Grant Saw at the end of 1997 following several years with a Central London firm and is the head of the firm's commercial and probate departments. Ray is the Honorary Solicitor for the South East London Chamber of Commerce and a member of The Law Management Section of The Law Society.

Yep, Christmas is just around the corner.  I don't know about you but it seems a bit weird thinking about Christmas or doing much present shopping before 1^st December at least!

However, some things take a bit more planning (and no, I don't just mean the staff party….you are having a staff party aren't you?).

Right now, there is someone in your firm fighting with the "old enemy" (no, not the Scots) the Christmas card list.  I know what you're thinking, now we're living in the digital age surely that's easier, no more deciding who signs which cards, getting them printed in time, making sure there are enough stamps etc.  Surely it's just upload a list of email addresses and press send.

Well, that's partly true, but you still have to pick out the design of an e-card.  You still have to "get" the list of email addresses, and HOW complicated can that be.  Well in speaking with my clients recently, for some of them it's just as complicated as it's always been.  If you are lucky you have an Excel file,  if not then it's clients in your PMS, referrers in Excel and everyone else in Outlook address books.  We had a serious discussion with one firm back in the autumn about bringing in SugarCRM just to manage their Christmas card list….thank god it never happened.

However you do build your list, there are many more things you can do than just send an e-card.  Here are some ideas we are working on with our clients this year :-

• Christmasify your website - snow on your logo, icicles from your logo, Santa hats on staff, seasonal images in your banner.  There are loads of ideas that can be implemented with a bit of design flair.  We usually only do this in the last week before the 25^th and take it down as soon as everyone is back at work.
• Animated cards - becoming more popular even with conservative law firms
• Dancing scrooge - you know the one, where you upload someone's photo and send them a link.  Let's not get carried away, even if you did have the appetite for this, it's VERY expensive to create these kinds of animations.
• Personalised cards - check out what you can do at Moonpig.com
• Santa cartoons - made using Xtranormal, check out a work-in-progress at www.xtranormal.com/watch/12551518/suing-santa-2

Whatever you do, this is the one time of year where you can show the playful side of your firm….you do have one don't you?

For some visual samples of the ideas about, download the PDF linked from the Conscious website.