LHS Solicitors launches flexible SME service

Now part of the New York stock exchange listed insurance giant Markel Corporation, the Manchester firm started life in 2007 as Lewis Hymanson Small, before being acquired by Abbey Legal Protection in 2013, itself subsequently bought by Markel in 2014.

Today the firm – which has just won ‘Regulatory Team of the Year 2016’ at the Manchester Legal Awards – employs more than 120 people across its London, Croydon and Manchester offices, with 35 lawyers based in Manchester. 

It has a turnover of £12m with sources close to LHS saying it plans to more than double that to £30m by 2020.

It’s going to do that by rolling out “disruptive” legal services to businesses and membership organisations in a bid to become the most widely recognised legal brand in the SME market.

LHS already handles around 150,000 calls from Federation of Small Business (FSB) members to its legal advice telephone service.

Graham Small, senior partner and a founder of LHS, told TheBusinessDesk.com: “Businesses that become members of the FSB have the benefit of legal expense insurance which Abbey underwrites and it can refer people to us.

“Abbey is already in that market of talking to SMEs. The question was how can we make real change?”

Small said the firm wants to become an identifiable brand in the SME sector, delivering legal services in a way that suits them. 

“That’s on time, on cost, having the right person doing it and speaking in plain language,” he said.

“Businesses will come in to us at the ground floor with simple issues we can solve quickly and as they grow and their needs change the complexity of the services we are able to offer will escalate.”

Small said the new service isn’t about just being the cheapest available but lawyers delivering legal advice to customers with choices, clear timelines and up front costings.

“We are not going to compete on price – that’s just a race to the bottom. Ours is a race to the top – to improve and grow the client base because people like what we do,” he said.

Customers may choose to proceed simply ‘doing it themselves’ based on real time legal information provided, getting a ‘quick review’ from a qualified solicitor or instructing the firm to handle the entire matter.

Digital products, videos and a library of legal content, including checklists, infographics, guides and tools, back up the customer focused experience.

Small said: “One promise is that for any legal query that comes in, the client will have a response within two hours. And if you send a query at 6pm you will have a response by 8am the next day.

“It about creating an environment where clients can easily access the law and their lawyers. It is not about automation or dumbing down but allowing businesses to pay for legal advice when they need it.”

Asked about the potential for growth out of Manchester or the north, Small said: “North shoring is not mentioned in our plans but there is a recognition of the benefits of having some work done out of Manchester.

“It is seen as a centre of commercial legal services and the regulatory team are focussed on Manchester. But also we now have back office support and systems from Markel that we could never have accessed as just the Manchester firm.”

Murray Fairclough, head of legal services for LHS, said at last week’s London launch, held in Markel’s offices at the Walkie Talkie building, that the service reflected many of the changes already seen within the retail sector and that it looked for inspiration from companies like Deliveroo and Uber which he said “have reset the way things are done”.

 “It is the beginning of a different way of delivering legal services. Look at the B2C retail community – change is going on all around us. What if we took the very best of what is going on in the B2C retail community and imparted that to legal services. 

 

People require signposting, milestones, information and total clarity on what they are going to spend along the journey.”