What is HighStreetLawyer Workshare?

HighStreetLawyer.com is a support services organisation for small to medium law firms assisting them in a variety of areas including marketing, training, strategy, procurement and networking.

HSL Workshare is our exclusive social networking platform where member firms share ideas, problems, solutions and work. They can also promote their services and procure services from other firms and our preferred suppliers. Sign up for FREE to find out more

It’s where we deliver tips, advice and training to our member firms and it’s where our preferred suppliers promote their services.

·         one of the great things about something like HSL is that we can and hopefully will bounce ideas off each other, just as you would with colleagues in a large law firm.

            GH, Gateshead

·         it’s good sharing info and ideas on here. I'm also now in touch with a selection of people I trust.

RF, Sheffield

·         I hope to collaborate and work with you all on this excellent platform.
I'm a firm believer that there is more to be gained from sharing than having a silo mentality.

            MS, Welwyn Garden City

Connect with people

The more people you are connected with, the more people can see, like and comment on your posts.

Sending an invite is easy. Just click on the “connect” button.  Sending a short message to introduce yourself when you connect. Helps to build relationships and trust.

Join Groups

HSL Workshare is made up of groups. There are groups for different practice areas. These are OPEN groups. Anyone can join.

OPEN Groups are also used for the HSL Preferred suppliers. To keep the site free from blatant advertising, suppliers maintain groups where they discuss their products, services and any special offers.

Strategic groups are OPEN or CLOSED depending on their nature. To join a CLOSED group your membership of it must be relevant and approved by the site administrator.

Promote yourself

There are a number of ways to promote yourself and your law firm on HSL Workshare

Featured firm  - each week one firm is our featured firm, their content is publicised and commented on by others. They are promoted on all HSL social media accounts;  twitter, linked in, blog

Ambassadors – Ambassadors are responsible for maintaining activity in a specific group. This is a great way to steer discussions to topics that promote the work that you wish to attract

Your profile – keep your profile up to date and include a picture and contact details to make it easier for others to connect.

Keep sharing and growing the network

Invite colleagues in your firm to join the debate on HSL Workshare. Everyone in your firm is automatically whitelisted.

Invite trusted colleagues in other firms who can add value to our network. Their invite requires the approval from the site administrator so only invite GOOD law firms with people willing to share and contribute

To find out more join us in Manchester on 11 June at Old Trafford and hear from the founder of HighStreetLawyer.com Gary Yantin and a great line up of speakers, all focussed on helping small law firms thrive not just survive. 

http://www.highstlawyerservices.com/#!hsl-strategy-day-11-june-2014/c1q8o 

Innovation is anything, but business as usual

I wasn't at this week's Legal Futures conference which is a shame as Neil Rose and his team always put on a good event with good speakers. I usually get the chance to catch up with a group of people who care passionately about the future of legal services even if very few of them are practising as lawyers but advising law firms on what to do. 

Luckily the twitter feed produced almost a running commentary to the Conference, entitled "2020 Vision", an attempt at predicting the future landscape, so I felt like I was following the flow of the event. What follows is my summary of the event as I saw it unfold in tweets. 

The overriding feeling is that, with the exception of Quality Solicitors, most of the brands and networks that appeared at earlier events were not present. I include HighStreetLawyer in that summary. We stayed away as our target audience of small law firms tend not to attend such conferences and our business model of targeting consumers has changed. However, new businesses attempting to mimic the arguable success of Quality Solicitors were present. Alex MIlls, of Apprentice fame. claimed that branding is everything and legal services are no exception. From my twitter communications I understand that he has 20-30 firms paying £600 per month. The Dynamo Legal site is undergoing maintenance so I will watch that space with interest. My cynicism tells me that he is unlikely to find that many firms willing to part with over £7,000 per year. 

The tweets I read about Quality Solicitors confused me further. Their newly promoted President and Founder Craig Holt appeared to claim both that "consistency of delivery of service is key" and that "it is the individual personality of the local member firms" that consumers value. Can consistency and individuality be delivered at the same time? 

Overseas brands continue to look at the UK market as a place ripe for investment. The latest is Jacoby and Meyers the largest consumer law firm in the US. Although they are hoping to build on the success of Slater and Gordon, their own Managing Attorney, Gabe MIller, admits that "it's not a given that we are going to succeed". 

Interesting models for law firm ownership were discussed by firms such as iSolicitor, Schillings and SAS Daniels. They all seem to understand the problems faced by the legal profession but, unless I missed something  which is possible, not having been at the event, nothing seemed to be truly innovative. 

So, for the time being at least, I will make two promises to myself; The first is to continue to build a network of small law firms who can collaborate on issues of importance to them and share strategy, ideas, problems and leads and to make sure that I attend Legal Future's next event in person. Reading the tweets is all well and good but nothing can make up for being there in person. 

For another view on the day, from someone who was there read http://www.conscious.co.uk/site/about/davidsblog/blogpost/Legal_Futures_2020_vision_conference.html

2013 - A challenge ahead

2012 not only saw the first full year of the Legal Services Act and the launch of a number of new legal service providers but also the implementation of an entirely new compliance regime. 2013 brings the introduction of a ban on referral fees payable by lawyers to the introducers of work. We asked a select number of small law firms to participate in a survey at the end of December and the results have helped us to form our opinion on the challenges that face them for 2013. The survey is still available at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RWD77JF

Every firm has by now had to nominate it's COLP and COFA. Such compliance officers will have to deal with Outcomes Focussed Regulations. Where previously a set of hard and fast rules governed the compliance of law firms, partners now have to interpret guidelines and make judgements of their own decisions. It is unsurprising therefore that about 250 firms have not yet nominated their COLP/COFA before the 31 December deadline http://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/hundreds-delinquent-firms-move-closer-colpcofa-action. In our survey, half of our respondents informed us that they were taking on both the COLP and COFA role.

Each week seems to see the launch of a new marketing initiative for legal services. Google backed US company Rocket Lawyer launched in the final quarter of 2012 and it's rival Legal Zoom is also dipping its toes into the UK legal market. Various comparison sites now exist and there is now of course TV advertising of legal services.

In 2012, more firms joined the Law Society's Conveyancing Quality Scheme and various lenders have now made CQS accreditation a requirement for membership of their panel. Without CQS, firms will simply not be able to act for certain lenders. Over a third of firms we surveyed admitted that they had to turn work away this year as they were not on a certain panel. From April 1 this year, firms without CQS will not be permitted on Santander's panel. Of the firms we surveyed only 40% had received CQS accreditation, although a further 40% intended to apply.

100% of our respondents would consider applying for accreditation of a probate scheme if The Law Society were to introduce one. Although firms are not exactly embracing these schemes there is a reluctant acceptance that to protect their ability to work, firms will have to carefully consider membership of as many schemes as possible.

Small, successful high street firms who wish to remain as such need to use the coming year to capitalise on their strengths and remove the effect of their weaknesses. Ironically, the fundamental strength of being a small law firm is paradoxically also its weakness. Because of their size small law firms have great local knowledge, years of experience often having acted for families or businesses for many years and the potential to give great customer service and be very caring towards their clients. Conversely, their ability to compete in marketing terms with larger organisations is stymied, even ridiculed by their size. With the same compliance regime for every firm, regardless of size, small firms will use up a far higher proportion of potential fee earning time with management and compliance issues. Marketing budgets of small law firms are dwarfed by those of large new market entrants. The only effective way to counter such competition is for smaller firms to take advantage of some kind of collective marketing, deciding first on whether social media, TV or price comparison is the forum to attack.

Of our surveyed firms, almost 70% had a Twitter and a Linked In account. 60% are actively sending enewsletters and approximately 40% are still sending brochures. At this rate, there must be a huge amount of material being sent by small firms to potential customers. How do firms distinguish themselves, especially when a lot of the material is fairly generic?

My prediction for 2013 is that lots of small law firms will find the challenges too much to face and will look for the chance to be taken over or leave the market. Small law firms should focus this year on existing client bases and not blow in the wind trying to attract new clients. Getting to grips with the effect as well as the cost of compliance will also be a great benefit. My hope is that small law firms play to their strengths and realise the great head start that that they have on new market entrants but accept the fact that that reducing cost bases and outsourcing back office functions may be necessary and productive. My new years resolution is to work with the firms that wish to remain strong, profitable and competitive.

Gary Yantin 
Gary Yantin is the founder and Managing Director of HighStreetLawyer.com, the consumer facing legal brand and umbrella group for small high street law firms. 

Ssh! It’s a secret! The importance of a good NDA

If you have a NDA, HighStreetLawyer.com will review it for you for free and let you know if it is suitable for your purposes. The information contained within this article does not constitute legal advice.

Anyone who has seen the film “The Social Network” about the creation of Facebook will appreciate the importance of guarding a good secret and ascertaining where the idea originated. Billions of pounds can be at stake by not properly protecting your business’ sacred information. Just look at the Apple versus Samsung litigation to see the effect.

But what if you have you got a business idea that you need to discuss with other people? You may need to take soundings on the viability of your idea or start talking to potential backers. However, as paranoia seeps in that those you want to collaborate with may steal your amazing idea, your desire to communicate with them diminishes.

What can you do to ensure that you achieve maximum advantage from partnering with others without losing your shirt?

There are various pros and cons to asking potential partners to sign a Non Disclosure or Confidentiality Agreement (NDA). Which form to use and whether to use one at all will depend on many factors.

If you are passing sensitive or confidential data to someone for review purposes or for them to assess whether a business relationship should be pursued a simple NDA is all that is required. The main element of the NDA is to put the receiving party on notice that the information that they will receive is regarded as commercially sensitive. The agreement will stipulate who the information can be shared with; such as accountants and lawyers, how it should be stored and what should happen if the relationship does not proceed. Where most data is shared electronically, consider how likely it will be that the receiving party can properly protect your sensitive data and destroy it when the relationship is not to be pursued.

If the other party is also going to be sharing their information with you, a mutual NDA will be best so that both parties are subject to the same obligations. This may not be as strong as a one sided NDA but shows the other party that you can also abide by promises of confidentiality.

Very few ideas are entirely new and elements of your idea may already be known to the recipient or in the public domain. The NDA should clarify whether it covers sensitive information about your idea that the recipient may have seen elsewhere. They will not want to be responsible for keeping secret something which is already widely known.

Experienced investors, angel networks and private equity houses receive hundreds of pitches, many of which have a similar theme and possibly similarities with ideas that they may be developing themselves especially if they are already in your sector. Their ability to protect your information and keep it separate, physically and theoretically, from other ideas that they have seen is often impaired. Many such investors will not agree to be bound by NDA’s for this reason. A confidentiality notice or an undertaking in correspondence may be the best you will get. Whether you want to share information with a party that does not want to sign your NDA will be a delicate balance of how useful they may be to moving your idea to the next level.

Of course, the more your idea is shared the harder it gets to keep it a secret.

You should always

Keep good records of everyone who has seen your sensitive data,
Who has signed a NDA and whether they made any changes to it before signing it,
Number all documents that you send out to keep track of the data flying around and
Ask that any documents are returned to you if the matter does not proceed.
A NDA is a contract between two parties and is enforceable provided it is proportionate to the type of information being shared. Imposing huge sanctions on a receiving party for breaching the agreement are unlikely to be upheld.

Drafting a NDA needn’t cost a fortune and a good template or precedent can be easily modified for different scenarios.

Ultimately, the purpose of the NDA is to notify the other party that you are serious, that you care about what you are sending them and that it has commercial value. Whether your idea is a success will have to rely on a whole host of other factors.