Stephensons commoditises to stave off threats to smaller law firms

GREATER Manchester law firm Stephensons Solicitors is commoditising more of its services to stave off the threats posed by new entrants such as banks and supermarkets looking to take a chunk out of the legal services market.

The Leigh-based firm, whose recently-filed accounts for the year ending April 14 show a 62.5% increase in pre-tax profits to £3.9m after its fee income increased by 10% to £13.9m, is developing a number of fixed-price service lines to attract large volumes of work.

For instance, it has recently set up a commercial landlord and tenant division offering fixed price commercial lease contracts starting from £300, and will shortly be opening a new dedicated commercial department in Bolton where it will offer similar services to SMEs.

Around 30 of its commercial law staff will move from the company’s various high street branches into a dedicated commercial office which will be based at Orbit Development’s Middlebrook Park next to Bolton Wanderers’ Reebok Stadium.

“There’s been a record number of start-ups and that stands us in good stead,” said the firm’s chairwoman, Ann Harrison. She envisaged that the bulk of its clients would be local SMEs.

“Although we do quite well in the city centre we will focus on the provincial towns in Lancashire,” she said. “For them the office is great as it offers easy access and easy parking.”

Harrison added that the firm would retain its high street presence in Bolton town centre, which will bring its total number of sites up to seven – Leigh, Wigan (x2), Bolton (x2), St Helens and Manchester city centre. Employee numbers, at around 370, have returned to a level where they were two years  ago before it was forced to close a remortgaging business last year which saw 50 staff depart.

Harrison said that most of those who were laid off have since been re-trained and re-employed to work in other parts of the business. 

“The corporate and property market is still difficult, but our family team is now one of the largest in the region.” She added that other counter-cyclical areas such as personal injury and clinical negligence remained busy, while legal aid work  – although challenging – provided a steady stream of income.

As a result, she said the firm was on target to grow income and profits again so far this year and had been investing in its team with the promotion of three existing solicitors – Correna Platt, Victoria Gethin and Joanne Murray have all been promoted to partner since the year end. They join Paula Smith, who heads the firm’s Bolton-based corporate team after joining from DWF in May.

“We’ve looked at what we had to do to make ourselves more solid,” said Harrison.

One of these has been bidding for – and winning more contracts to provide legal services via telephone lines to organisations including Greater Manchester Chamber and the Legal Services Commission. An employment advice line run for the latter aimed at people on low incomes provided around 10,000 hours worth of advice last year.

“People like telephone advice as you can deliver the same service but it’s much cheaper than face-to-face and you don’t waste any money through missed appointments,” said Harrison.

“The quality of that work is really high and we’ve had some really interesting cases through that which have gone all thee way through to tribunal.
She added that the firm had also upgraded its website so that it can handle transactions such as wills online.

“People now do all of their insurance and banking online so it shouldn’t be too difficult,” she said “60% of people still don’t have a will so we’re trying to market that as there’s an urgent need.”

Harrison added that she believes things will remain tough for high street law firms, and that she expected a record number to apply to be placed into the assigned risks pool as insurers take flight from the market due to concerns about the risks and the financial stability of clients.

“It’s a very difficult time for smaller high street practices,” she said.