Edward O’Rourke, Corporate & Commercial Partner, Ashton KCJ

Edward is the Head of the Corporate & Commercial Team. He is an experienced panel lawyer, principally acting on behalf of global banks and has also acted for both the region's largest businesses and small start-ups. Edward's experience of commercial contracts includes agency agreements, franchise operations, distribution agreements, joint venture relationships and a wide range of trading terms and conditions.

He can also advise directors and shareholders on their rights and duties and dealing with succession planning. He is Chairman of the Company Commercial Committee of national law group LawNet.

How would others describe you in three words?
Stupid adrenalin junkie.

What has been your best professional moment to date?
Building a team.

What has been your worst/most embarrassing professional moment to date?
As a trainee leaving client files on the roof of a car and driving off (files were retrieved complete with tyre marks).

Tell us about one surprising thing you’ve learned since becoming Partner?
Aconcagua is the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas.

If you hadn't chosen Law, what do you think you'd be doing with your life?
Mountain rescue.

If we looked in your desk’s top drawer, what would we find?
Lunch.

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.

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.