Black Country law firm boosts university resources with special donation
Reference resources at Birmingham City University’s School of Law have received a boost following a spot of housekeeping from a Black Country law firm.
Talbots, one of the fastest growing law practices in the Black Country, is refurbishing its Kidderminster office and, as part of the redevelopment, needed to find a home for 850 law journals.
The firm was keen to find the right home for the books so got in touch with a number of universities in the area to ask if they would like to be custodians.
It settled on BCU as its School of Law has a breadth of legal disciplines and a wide range of reference material.
Mary Mocklow, chief executive of Talbots, said: “We had been storing the journals at our library, but needed to free up some space for our expansion and to accommodate additional staff.
“The books, some of which date back to the 1800s, are leather bound and look great. They’re too good to be just thrown away so we took the decision to find an organisation that could make the best possible use of them.
“Some of our lawyers had graduated from BCU and asked us to approach the school there to see if they wanted the collection.”
The legal journals are now in place in the mock courtrooms used by BCU to train its future barristers and solicitors.
They will also be used as a backdrop for the press and media interviews regularly conducted by legal staff.
Haydn Davies, BCU’s Interim Head of Law, said: “The oldest of the texts (in the English reports) goes back to 1895 and it is very unusual these days to get a full set of law reports bound in leather. They look fantastic in place and conjure up the feeling of being in an active courtroom – great experience for our students.
“It is the first time we have worked with Talbots and it is a very generous donation. If we were to purchase this collection – even second hand – the cost would probably run to thousands of pounds, so we are very grateful.”
Talbots, which has seven offices in Codsall, Dudley, Halesowen, Kidderminster, Stourbridge, Stourport and Wolverhampton, is on course to generate £12m of fees this year.
Pictured from left: Jagdip Bains (Talbots), Haydn Davies (Birmingham City University) and Rachel Pardoe (Talbots).
