News

We are officially BCorp certified!

We are delighted to be joining a global community of businesses committed to positively impact all people, communities and the planet - meeting high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.

We started our application back in June 2023 and it's been a long but extremely rewarding road to becoming certified. The B Corp application is a long and in depth process of scrutinising five core areas of your business - Governance, Workers, Community, Environment, and Customers.

So, how did we get on? We were already making strides in areas like our community initiatives, sustainability, mental health, DEI, and team training, so the B Corp journey prompted us to view these initiatives holistically and collaboratively.

What an amazing evening at the The Drum Awards . We won not one, but two awards with Aurora 🎉🎉

⭐️Gold Limited Budget award
⭐️ Gold Social Media award

The Weightmans See the Possibility campaign has been an incredible campaign to work on. So many Weightmans people have played a part in this success and we couldn’t have done it without the wonderful Dawn Paine and Valerie Bounds ✨

Just shows what you can do if you’re prepared to be bold but authentic and you have the power of a wonderful group of Weightmans colleagues engaging with a purposeful campaign

Global law firm, Ashurst, has appointed Adam Soames as Chief Business Development Officer, effective 4 November. Based in London, Adam will lead the firm's Clients, Markets and Growth function and work closely with Global Clients and Markets Partner, Jamie Ng, to drive the firm's 2027 strategy for business development. 

Kennedys is pleased to announce the appointment of Meg Catalano as the firm’s Global Managing Partner, effective 1 November 2024.

As the first Global Managing Partner from an international office, Meg will be responsible for the strategic and operational management of their global network of 48 offices.

Additionally, Eric Hiller has been appointed as the new Regional Managing Partner for the US, and Michael Hennessy as Regional Managing Partner for LATAM and Caribbean.

We wish Meg, Eric, and Michael the best of luck in their new roles and look forward to the continued success they will bring to the firm.

Transatlantic study by Man Bites Dog demonstrates the impact of thought leadership on C-Suite buying behaviour in large B2B corporates.    

• 94% of C-suite leaders consume content created by business brands at least once a week.  

• Legal content is the least-trusted B2B content, while accountancy firms come top in the ‘battle of intelligent brands.’  

A study amongst C-suite executives in very large B2B organisations has found that leaders now regard content from business brands as a key source of truth. However, the research also finds that business leaders are more likely to trust content from accountancy firms, tech companies, management consultancies and financial services firms than content from law firms.  

Alison Sharpe, Divisional Director (Professional Services), Man Bites Dog, says: “Law firms can offer extensive expertise on key corporate topics, from technology regulation to the shifting ESG landscape, but it can be challenging for them to create content that is bold and differentiated enough to stand out in the market. Firms need to find ways to filter their legal expertise through the prism of business, engaging the C-suite as well as general counsel.” 

Global law firm White & Case LLP has appointed Isabel Parker to the role of Chief Innovation Officer and Jason Hill to the role of Chief Marketing Officer.

"Jason and Isabel's superior credentials and track records give us confidence that marketing and innovation will continue to be strategic contributors to the Firm's growth, " said White & Case Chair, Heather McDevitt. "We welcome their leadership and fresh perspectives." 

In a volatile, ever-changing market, accessing up-to-date and robust legal market specific compensation data and insights is vital to attracting and retaining the best talent.

Capitalising on Totum's extensive market knowledge, consistent methodology and expert contributors, their annual Business Services Reward survey is a one-stop shop to guide your salary, bonus and benefits strategy.

Sign up soon. Deadline to participate is 11th October.

Appeared in Roll on Friday

Pump Court Chambers fell victim to a £2.75m fraud, and has now failed in its attempt to keep the matter secret.

At a private High Court hearing earlier this month, the chambers  said   it made a nasty discovery when its credit control manager, Gillian Goodfield, left in June. They found that over a five year period, Goodfield had stolen “in the order of £2.75m” from the bank account used to pay Pump Court's barristers.

Freshfields is the latest firm to have a rebrand, ditching 'Bruckhaus Deringer', to emerge as...(drum roll) Freshfields.

The Freshfields name was adopted at the turn of the 19th century, after a partner James William Freshfield. His coat of arms had the Archangel Michael, which has been been part of the firm's brand for a couple of centuries. However, the angel will be removed from the main branding, and so its divine presence will no longer hover at the top of the letterhead. 

The firm merged in 2000 with two German firms, which resulted in 'Bruckhaus Deringer' being added, but the firm will also say 'auf Wiedersehen' to those names, which had become virtually obsolete in recent years.

As existential threats converge, many companies are taking steps to reinvent themselves. Is it enough? And what will it take to succeed?

Twelve months ago, PwC reported that nearly 40% of global CEOs believed their companies would no longer be viable in ten years’ time if they continued on their current path. 

The reinvention imperative this implied caught the attention of our clients, prompting thousands of conversations between PwC partners and CEOs around the world. ‘Are we in the 40% or the 60%?’ was a question many CEOs posed to themselves and their top teams during or following these discussions. Almost invariably, as they anticipated the magnitude of changes barrelling towards them, those leaders concluded that they needed to be more transformative in their approach if their organisation was to thrive in the decades ahead.

A copy of the full report can be found in the Knowledge Bank Section on the PSMG website

82% of UK lawyers have adopted generative AI or have plans in motion, almost four-times the number seen in Summer 2023. Lawyers say delivering work faster is the biggest benefit of AI, yet it is prompting many to rethink the suitability of their pricing structure.

Today, LexisNexis^® , a leading global provider of legal information and analytics, released a new report – Need for Speedier Legal Services sees AI Adoption Accelerate  – which reveals a sharp increase in the number of lawyers using generative AI for legal work. 

The survey of 800+ UK legal professionals at firms and in-house teams found 41% are currently using AI for work, up from 11% in July 2023. Lawyers with plans to use AI for legal work in the near future also jumped from 28% to 41%, while those with no plans to adopt AI dropped from 61% to 15%. 

The report highlights that the main reason for AI adoption is the ability to deliver work more quickly. An impressive 71% of lawyers cited faster delivery as a key benefit of AI, followed by improved client service (54%) and gaining a competitive advantage (53%). When asked to select the single greatest benefit, 52% identified delivering work faster as the primary advantage.    

This shift towards AI-driven efficiency is expected to bring changes to pricing structures. The survey found that 39% of private practice lawyers now expect to adjust their billing practices due to AI, up from 18% in January 2024. However, only 17% of those in private practice think that AI will end the billable hour model, while 40% believe it will remain and 42% are uncertain about its impact.

Hogan Lovells is shuttering its offices in Sydney, Johannesburg and Warsaw, for "strategic" reasons.

The office closures mean that the firm will no longer have any bases in Australia, South Africa and Poland, respectively. Hogan Lovells shut its other previous Australian office (in Perth) in 2022, having launched in the country in 2015. 

As well as legal work, Hogan Lovells used its Joberg office to carry out some support work for other offices.

White & Case increase its starting legal apprentice salary to GBP32K plus a GBP1k set up bonus, bringing first year earnings to GBP33K, the highest in the City.

Apprentices will then end up matching the firm's trainees first and second year salaries of GBP62,000 and GBP67,000 in their years five and six.

The Covid-19 pandemic undoubtedly changed employers’ attitudes towards remote and hybrid working, which in most industries has become part and parcel of the terms of employment offered to staff. However, the first study since lockdowns in the UK began found that individuals working from home ("WFH") encounter career penalties, irrespective of the widespread adoption of WFH/hybrid work policies, with the impact being greater on men than women.

Recent research conducted by the University of Warsaw and presented earlier this month to the British Sociological Association showed that, in the UK, people who work from home are less likely to get pay rises and promotions than purely office-based workers.

Researchers surveyed 937 managers employed in various businesses and industries within the UK, who supervised at least five employees and worked in companies that employed at least 10 individuals. They were presented with profiles of hypothetical full-time staff members who worked five days a week at the office a week, five days at home, or three days at the office and two at home. The hypothetical profiles also included other different characteristics (such as age, gender and experience in the sector).

The managers were asked to choose which one they were likely to promote and which one they would give a pay rise to.

Ogier’s London office has moved to new premises to provide greater flexibility and service to their clients.

The firm's presence in the UK has grown significantly. 70 employees are now attached to the London office following substantial growth in each of the legal, corporate and fiduciary, and specialist business services teams. To cater for this, Ogier has moved to a new office at St Helen's Place, Bishopsgate – a minute's walk away from its previous location at 100 Bishopsgate.

British businessman Sir Martin Sorrell has said that altering the working week will not boost productivity in the UK, pushing back on Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s pledges to transform Britain’s work culture.

Starmer has vowed to “level up workers’ rights” in the UK, proposing a default right to flexible working that, he argues, will make employees more productive and loyal.

Amazon is ordering staff back to the office five days a week as it ends its hybrid work policy.

The change will come into force from January, Amazon's chief executive Andy Jassy said in a memo to staff, external.

"We’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of Covid," he said, adding that it would help staff be "better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other".

VCMO Limited a pioneer in fractional marketing leadership, has appointed Ruth Napier as Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). 

Ruth brings significant expertise to the VCMO network having held senior marketing and business development roles across the professional services sector. She is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a Certified SOSTAC® Planner.

Prior to becoming a Fractional CMO, Ruth operated as Director of Marketing for Payne Hicks Beach where she successfully set up their first marketing function, led a rebrand and transformed their digital presence. Prior to that, Ruth was Director of Business Development and Marketing at Cripps where she led profitable growth and numerous transformation projects.

Tom Lavin has started a new role as Global Head of Operations in the Client & Market Development team at Clifford Chance after many happy years at White & Case.

He reports he has already received a warm welcome from the team there and is excited to be starting this new chapter.

Congratulations Tom from the PSMG team and we hope to continue working with you.

A sweeping hike in capital gains tax (CGT) risks “undermining the  chancellor’s   growth agenda” and could suck talent and investment away from Britain’s start-ups, some of the country’s top fintech bosses have warned.

Industry bodies and tech chiefs mounted a co-ordinated push to topple the suggestion of a blanket rise in CGT yesterday as they called for a carve-out of ‘earned capital gains’, which could shield the equity of start-up founders and staff from a rise in taxes.

Start-ups often make up for lower salaries by offering their staff equity in the company. Suggestions that the Treasury could hit those shares with a 45 per cent tax have triggered fears of an exodus away from the UK or into safer salary-paying jobs at big tech firms.

“I will say the level of alarm in the tech community is just escalating and escalating,” Paul Taylor, founder of $2.7bn (£2.06bn) banking technology firm Thought Machine, told  City A.M.

“They’re literally talking about going from one of the best capital gains regimes to the worst. It would be the highest rate in Europe. I don’t think anybody would start a company here – why would you?” he added.

Santander has cracked down on its approach to hybrid working in yet another sign that UK companies are beginning to favour more in-office working patterns.

The Spanish-owned bank has informed its nearly 10,000 employees across the UK that they must now work in the office three days a week, instead of its previous two-day a week policy.

Santander’s move comes following a number of other companies making the switch from two days a week to three,  including PwC , which ordered its staff back into the office this week,

Accountancy firm PwC is to begin tracking its employees' locations and insist they are at their desk at least three days a week in a crackdown on office attendance.

The firm informed its 26,000 UK employees that from January it would start tracking their working location. 

Managing partner Laura Hinton told staff on Thursday they would begin sending employees their working location data every month, adding they must now spend 'a minimum of three days a week' in the office or at client sites. 

Whilst it is an overly hackneyed phrase, Weightmans’ foray into innovation and it’s evolution in to the creation of products has truly been a journey for the firm generally and, in particular, for Catriona Wolfenden, Product and Innovation Directory and Stuart Whittle, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer. 

From its inception of, largely, having to make things up as they went along to a, Dr Seuss, Cat in the Hat approach to getting stuff done, the book charts that journey along with assimilating the experience of others in the market who undertook similar journeys and attempts to distil some of the do’s and don’ts and lessons learned along the way to, if nothing else, record all of the things they might have done differently if they knew what they know now.

Fundamentally the book isn’t about the process or about the technology, it’s about the people and the nuances of creating products and innovating within the confines of a law firm and, with some perspicacity, the awareness of their own limitations as former lawyers cast out far beyond their comfort zones.

A 25% pre-publication DISCOUNT is currently available here

Watch this space for more information as to launch and content promotion!

The PSMG is pleased to have chosen Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide (SoBS) as its official charity.

Alison Middleton founded SoBS in 1991 after losing her brother to suicide. Her personal experience with the lack of support available to those left behind drove her to create a lifeline for others grappling with grief, unanswered questions, and feelings of abandonment. Today, 33 years later, SoBS has developed significantly with, vitally, a growing band of expert staff and volunteers, all of whom have been impacted by suicide loss.

Tayla-Jayde Morgan, the charity’s head of social media and marketing, says:

“A 2016 study published in JAMA Psychiatry highlighted a grim reality: individuals bereaved by the suicide of a family member are 3.3 times more likely to die by suicide than those who have not experienced such a loss.

“SoBS addresses this critical issue by providing essential support and helping to prevent the cycle of suicide. We offer peer-to-peer help through local groups, a support line, email assistance, and an online forum accessible to those abroad who lack local resources. Additionally, we have launched a podcast,  Let's Talk Tuesday  , where we interview volunteers about their journey from grief to becoming a lifeline for others.”

PSMG managing partner, Gail Jaffa, says: “We’re so pleased to be able to offer our support to SoBS. As an organisation representing professionals in demanding and challenging jobs, we’re all-too aware how something like stress affects us mentally and physically and, crucially, how important it is we all feel more comfortable talking about our own mental wellbeing and that of those with whom we work.”

https://uksobs.com/

International recruitment firm Ambition has expanded its U.S. capabilities with the opening of a New York office. 

The U.S. team specialises in the recruitment of marketing, business development and communications professionals in the legal industry. 

"We are tremendously excited to plant a stake in the U.S. and in New York’s Chrysler Building, which is such an iconic part of the city’s skyline," said Ambition’s Regional Managing Director, Nicky Acuna Ocana. "Our expansion into the U.S., starting with an office in New York, was seen as the next logical step in our global growth and was sparked by demand from many of our UK law firm clients seeking talent in the U.S. Now we’re here and ready to service existing and new clients specifically in New York, Washington, D.C. but also across the country.”

Leading brand consultancy, Industry, has revealed the findings of its inaugural evaluation of brand perceptions within the UK legal sector, highlighting a significant generational shift in what recent graduates and established solicitors value in potential employers. 

Employing a unique 360-degree approach, the survey captures the perspectives of in-house legal counsel, private practice professionals, graduates, and law students, with some surprising findings. 

Most notably, the survey identifies a significant generational shift in priorities. Recent graduates prioritise investment in technology, clear social purpose, and a dynamic working environment. Conversely, established solicitors focus on firm reputation and technical expertise. This disparity suggests that law firms must adapt to the evolving preferences of the next generation to remain attractive to new talent. 

The survey also reveals that In-house lawyers and private practice professionals have differing priorities. In-house lawyers place a higher emphasis on customer service, business acumen, and flexible fee arrangements, while private practice lawyers prioritise sector experience and technical excellence.

The results are out! TBD Marketing’s LinkedIn quarterly report (Q2 2024) has been released, revealing the Top 100 Legal LinkedInfluencers. 

To produce the report, TBD Marketing analysed data from the top 200 UK law firms, leading independent firms, and barristers, and identified the best-performing individuals between 1 April to 30 June 2024.

Blazing a trail and heading the Top 100 list from the top 200 UK firms rankings this quarter are Ilana Kattan (Hogan Lovells), who racked up an impressive 36,555 likes, and Mark Stephens CBE (Howard Kennedy) who received an incredible 4,897 comments. Jen Shipley (Irwin Mitchell) remains one of the most influential legal voices on LinkedIn,   producing three of the top six posts.   Emma-Jane Taylor-Moran (Rebel Law) leads the charge for the Indies and Andrew Hogan (Kings Chambers) tops the Barristers list.   

The main list is dominated by large law firms with Hogan Lovells, DLA Piper, Clifford Chance and A&O Shearman all having five names in the top 100, demonstrating significant engagement and influence within the legal sector. However, Paul Sams (Dutton Gregory), Trevor Sterling (Moore Barlow) and Paul Jenkins (Ashurst) top the Leaders list, ably demonstrating that executing a clear strategy will harness results irrespective of the size of the firm.

Hannah Berryman joins FRP Advisory as BD Manager from Chambers Russell, a property specialist law firm in Sydney.

Her role at FRP will be to help drive initiatives that will deliver their ambitious growth strategy.

Increasingly, firms are embracing leadership expertise from diverse industries to drive strategy, operational efficiency, structural reform and commercial growth. Compared to other industries, law firms continue to offer particularly competitive salaries at senior levels. So how are remuneration packages at Director and Chief level awarded?

In a volatile, ever-changing market, accessing up-to-date and robust legal market specific compensation data and insights is vital to attracting and retaining the best talent.

Capitalising on Totum's extensive market knowledge, consistent methodology and expert contributors, their annual Business Services Reward survey is a one-stop shop to guide your salary, bonus and benefits strategy.

Today, LexisNexis Legal & Professional ^®, a leading global provider of legal information and analytics, released a new report – Bellwether 2024: Lessons on law firm growth – which reveals nearly two-thirds of small- and medium-sized firms plan to grow in the next five years, and they’re investing in technology to help them get there. 

The survey of 265 associates and senior leaders at small- to medium-sized firms revealed the number of firms with plans to grow organically increased by 57% in the last 12 months, rising from 40% in 2023 to 63% in 2024. 

Legal technology is the top investment priority for small firms. More than half (56%) have increased their tech spend or have plans to increase it in the next 12-18 month, a significant increase from last year’s Bellwether survey. Only 26% have no plans to increase technology investment. 

The appetite for organic growth saw merger or acquisition plans drop from 13% in 2023 to 10% in 2024. Firms that plan to continue maintaining steady revenue is less than half of what it was last year, dropping from 38% down to 18%.

iManage , the company dedicated to Making Knowledge Work^TM, today announced that its partnership with Microsoft continues to gather momentum with the development of an integration between its iManage AI services and Microsoft Copilot. The new plug-in reinforces the strength of the relationship between iManage and Microsoft and the commitment of both companies to democratizing AI and delivering better business outcomes for customers in Knowledge Work industries. 

The new iManage and Microsoft Copilot plug-in extends the unique value of both applications by bridging the user’s Microsoft 365 world and the engagement-centric content secured within the iManage Knowledge Work platform. The integration enables the AI engine to ground the responses in the specific context of the organization’s prior work product while also respecting the security context of the user. The user is empowered to leverage powerful generative AI tools to facilitate stakeholder work and inform decisions quicker and with more confidence. 

iManage is actively engaged with innovative customers as part of its early adopter program (EAP) which enables customers to validate the business impact and develop a change management strategy.

Kreston Reeves has published its B Corp™ and environment, social and governance (ESG) impact reports to mark the firm’s first anniversary of achieving B Corp™ certification.

During the past 12 months the firm has achieved B Corp™ certification, maintained its carbon neutral status, achieved a top 100 apprenticeship employer status, introduced term-time only contracts, introduced top tier maternity and adoption leave policies, reduced its gender pay gap and scored 8.2 out of 10 in its people engagement survey, to name a few.

Additionally, the firm continues to align activities to support four United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); good health and wellbeing (SDG3), quality education (SDG4), reducing inequalities (SDG10) and climate action (SDG13).

The firm’s progress was recognised at the annual Accounting Excellence Awards, winning the inaugural ‘Pride Award – ESG’.

MyCustomerLens – which works with legal and other professional services firms – has been shortlisted in the ‘Best Technology Product’ category at The Lawyer Awards 2024. 

While many of the eight-strong shortlist are using artificial intelligence (AI) as part of their solution, MyCustomerLens is the only product focused on the business, rather than the practice, of law.

Leading legal marketing agency TBD Marketing has announced the appointment of Claire Farrelly to help drive forward the business and expand the range of services offered to clients within the sector. 

Claire joins from Forsters where she established the firm’s BD and Marketing Team over the last decade as Head of Marketing and Business Development. 

As well as being a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Marketing, Claire has over 25 years’ experience across all areas of professional services. For the last 16 years she has held senior marketing and business development roles across the legal and real estate sectors including Savills and Berwin Leighton Paisner (now BCLP).  

Habiba Cullen-Jafar, Reporter, www.law.com

Freshfields, Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy, Linklaters and Slaughter and May have all published gender pay gap data for 2023.

The gender pay gaps at several of the U.K.’s elite law firms have widened across key metrics, with reports for 2023 revealing little to no improvement over the last 12 months.

The deadline for law firms to voluntarily submit their gender pay gaps has now closed, with a host of firms with over 250 employees publishing their annual gender pay gap data, including Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy, Linklaters and Slaughter and May.

Some of the firms attributed the gaps to higher proportions of women in lower paying business support roles, as well as more women being compared to their firms’ mostly male highest earners as more women gain entry to the partnership.

Landing a job at a top firm and working your way up to partnership used to be the lifetime career goal for most lawyers. But only 25% of current associates want to make partner at their firm in the next five years.  

Today, LexisNexis Legal & Professional ^®, a leading global provider of legal information and analytics, released a new report – Disloyal lawyers: has the partnership model lost its lustre? – which reveals the majority of legal associates aren’t racing to take on the responsibilities, risks and potential rewards of partnership.   

A LexisNexis survey of 500+ law firm associates and senior leaders found only a quarter (25%) of legal associates aspire to make partner at their current firm within the next five years, and only 3% at another firm. Nearly half of leaders (49%) said they have noticed a decline in the number of associates aspiring to make partner, with only 19% disagreeing. This rises to 63% for leaders at large law firms. Most leaders accredited this shift in behaviour to a desire for a better work-life balance (71%). 

However, associates expressed a strong sense of loyalty to their current firms. More than half (58%) of associates said they plan to be at their current firm in five years’ time. Only 12% said they plan to leave private practice for in-house, ALSPs, or academic career opportunities. Yet, the majority of leaders (72%) believe associates are less loyal than previous generations. This jumped to 81% when looking at responses from leaders at medium and large law firms.

Gowling WLG said on Tuesday that it will require legal staff in the U.K. to spend at least 60% of their time working in the office, after a recent survey revealed that half of law firms are "actively looking" at increasing in-office attendance.

Andy Stylianou, chair of Gowling's business in the U.K., said in a statement that the law firm will require its legal teams to spend at least 60% of their time in the office from May — equivalent to three days a week. The firm currently expects its employees to spend at least half of their time in the office.

Stylianou said that Gowling has offered "agile" working for several years, including before the COVID-19 pandemic. He added that the firm keeps its approach to hybrid working under review "to ensure we are delivering the very best for our clients and fostering a strong team culture, alongside flexibility for our people.

Lexsoft Systems , a provider of IT and business process solutions, today announced the launch of Lexsoft T3 GenAI, a new knowledge management (KM) solution within its T3 product suite, powered by Microsoft  OpenAI technology, to deliver Copilot-like functionality and user experience to the KM function. This out-of-the-box, ready-to-deploy, and best practice-led solution marks a step change in KM capability, enabling law firms to simplify and automate critical processes, fully supported with visual and actionable data analytics.

Congratulations to all of the Rising Stars and to the people who took the time to nominate. Totum are delighted to announce the winners of this year's Rising Star Awards.

BD & Marketing:  Natasha Carmichael, Marketing Executive, Kennedys

Finance: Jasmine Alefounder, Assistant Financial Accountant, Kennedys

HR:   Jordan Troops, HR Advisor, Addleshaw Goddard

London law firm, Howard Kennedy is pleased to announce that Helen Loney has been appointed as the new Director of Business Development and Marketing. Helen joined the firm over 18 months ago and was previously Head of Clients & Markets.

Helen will lead the firm's Business Development and Marketing team and will be integral in delivering the firm's strategy. 

Helen has over twenty years' experience in business development and marketing in the professional services sector.  Prior to joining Howard Kennedy, Helen held Business Development and Marketing Director roles at law firms Armstrong Teasdale and Kerman & Co. 

Craig Emden, Managing Partner, commented: After a thorough interview process, we were delighted to find that the outstanding candidate was right here at Howard Kennedy. Helen has already established strong relationships throughout the business and provided support and strategic direction to the Business Development team and to our fee earners. We are an ambitious firm with a clear strategy and I look forward to working with Helen on delivering it.  

Helen added:  I am delighted to be taking on the Director role at Howard Kennedy.  I look forward to implementing our strategy and working with the firm's Management Committee to drive the firm's focus on delivering profitable growth across the business.

Today, LexisNexis Legal & Professional ^®, a leading global provider of legal information and analytics, has revealed that 26% of legal professionals are currently using generative AI tools on at least a monthly basis – up from 11% in July 2023. A further 35% of respondents unveiled plans to use the technology in the near future. 

The LexisNexis survey of 1,200+ legal professionals in the UK found that substantially more than half (62%) of law firms have already made changes to their day-to-day operations as a result of generative AI.  These changes include launching AI-powered products for internal use, delivering AI-related training for staff, the hiring of AI experts and developing policies on the use of generative AI. 

This continued enthusiasm for and adoption of generative AI tools is reflected in the areas legal professionals say are top priority opportunities for the technology.  91% want to use AI for time-saving tasks like drafting documents, 90% for researching matters and 73% for streamlining communication tasks such as writing emails. More complex tasks such as contract analytics (53%), connecting generative AI to case management (50%), or real-time comparisons of law across jurisdictions (45%) were also high on the priority list.

Expert services providers join forces to deliver strategy, legal technology, operations, and intelligence to law firms and corporate law departments

Harbor today announced its acquisition of Pinnacle, a leading legal technology and managed services provider in the UK, Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific. This expansion enables Harbor to offer its full portfolio of expert services across strategy, legal technology, operations, and intelligence to law firms and corporate law departments internationally.

In the UK, 110+ employees from Pinnacle and 25+ employees from Harbor will combine, and Pinnacle employees in the US and Canada will join the respective Harbor teams in those countries. All will operate as globally integrated teams under the Harbor brand to offer expert services to the legal industry.

Congratulations to Angela Norris and the team at Pinsent Masons for winning the Learning and Development Innovation Award of the Winmark Innovation awards.

The judging panel of this award were impressed by Pinsent Masons’ Client Relationships Programme and how it advances best practice learning firm-wide. Through simplified training modules, the programme enables relationship skills development for all staff regardless of role or location. Its people-centric design promotes flexible self-paced learning without overburden.

Burges Salmon   is officially the Best Law Firm to Work At, for the  third   year running.

The Bristol-headquartered firm’s staff gave such high marks that competing firms were unable to deny it the triple – although Bird & Bird and Mills & Reeve  came close .

In RollOnFriday’s Best Law Firms to Work At 2024, over 8,000 people working in private practice across the UK rated their satisfaction with their pay, work/life balance, career development, management, office, and the culture at their firm.

The survey has been running for two decades and is the definitive guide to which firms are happy places to work, and which are predominantly misery machines.

A number of U.S.-centric firms across London have started to once again raise salaries for their newly qualified (NQ) associates, matching the Cravath scale, in turn adding pressure to U.K-headquartered firms which have been slower to review their junior pay structures.

NQ rates at a number of U.S firms in London are now routinely exceeding the £170,000 mark, as firms apply the Cravath salary scale to their U.K. pay rates.

Despite the uniformity seen in the U.S., rates in London have varied as firms grapple with shifting foreign exchange rates and other market-related factors.

www.law.com

Ekaterina (Kat) Rozenbaum joins to lead Skadden’s marketing efforts across Europe for their controversy and disputes practices. Kat originally qualified as a solicitor with a magic circle firm, and in recent years has worked in several highly relevant disputes-related marketing/BD roles at Raedas, Mishcon de Reya and EPAM. She is also an officer of the IBA’s Law Firm Management Committee. 

Jessica Anderson & Natasha Raffill have joined the team as Marketing Coordinators to support the European Marketing Team on all key marketing projects and infrastructure. Jessica and Natasha both worked together at Chambers & Partners for several years, among other roles.

Multinational law firm Pinsent Masons has appointed energy partner Melanie Grimmitt as head of the firm’s new Clients and Markets Group as it seeks to accelerate its multinational sector-led approach in the wake of rapid global expansion.

Formerly global head of the firm’s energy sector, Melanie Grimmitt is a Leeds-based partner specialising in transactional construction and recognised for her work on large-scale energy projects. Joining the firm in 1999, she was promoted to partner in 2008 and has advised a number of high-profile clients including E.ON, EDF, Orsted and RWE.

TFT became B Corp certified at the end of 2022, as part of their commitment to creating more positive impacts through their work and the way they operate as a business.

Now, one year in their journey, they are publishing TFT’s first ever  B Impact Report . This is their snapshot of 2023 from the perspective of the five  B Corp   impact pillars: Employees, Environment, Community, Customers and Governance.

Last year they celebrated their 50th birthday with two big announcements: They estblished TFT's Employee Ownership Trust and they launched their in-house training and development platform to keep their team ahead of ever-advancing industry best practice.

Top 100 law firm Moore Barlow has appointed Michelle Wheeler to the role of Chief Marketing Officer.  

Based in Southampton, Michelle will lead the firm's business development, marketing and communications function across all London and regional offices.  

Michelle brings a strong track record to the role, having operated at a senior level for over 20 years across a range of sectors, including healthcare, charities and financial services.

London-based international law firm Mishcon de Reya has announced the acquisition of flexible legal resourcing business Flex Legal. This is the firm's first strategic acquisition in the alternative legal services market, building on its prior investments in adjacent businesses over the past 10 years.

Congratulations to Bill Deckelman and every member of the DXC Technology Legal team for winning Financial Times Innovative Lawyers award for INNOVATION IN PEOPLE AND SKILLS in North America.  A core value of DXC is "People First."

FT coverage applauded DXC Legal's well-being initiatives in the win. Many of the global team participate in virtual sessions on topics from Healthy Teamwork to a Neuroscientist's Guide to Reduce Stress, to Finding Calm (short yoga & guided meditation sessions) to Mental Health Awareness. In a time of uncertainty and constant change, it's so important that every team member feels a sense of belonging at work and that they can rely on each other.

This past March, the UK and Israel signed the 2030 Roadmap for UK-Israeli Bilateral Relations, the prime goal being to boost economic, security and technology ties and to ensure the partnership remains modern and innovate so as to address shared challenges.

In their latest IsraelDesks feature, they take a deep dive into the state of the UK- Israel relationship, the challenges being faced, and the prospects going forwards, hearing the views of some of the most active and prolific lawyers in both markets.

Carlos García-Egocheaga, Chief Executive Officer, Lexsoft Systems , offers his views on the adoption and impact of generative AI in 2024, in the context of the knowledge management function in the legal sector:

A third of UK employees have little or no faith in their organisation’s ESG initiatives, according to new research launched today by integrated marketing agency Team LEWIS. 

Cynicism about UK businesses and their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives runs deep amongst employees. Research finds that there is a deep disconnect between what companies do and how they communicate progress, leaving many employees unconvinced.  

As we look towards 2024, the CogniClick team are getting ready and raring for  what’s coming next year.

From how many we’re recruiting, to how we’re going to use AI, and even how much budget we have compared to last year - it’s all on the table to be decided! 

For our friends in professional services marketing, we’ve created thi s quic k poll so you can compare your top line thinking on next year. What is your main focus, how do you feel about AI, are your teams growing or budgets shrinking?

You can compare your plans again st other PS m arketers in this quick but global study, and get a personalised summary of the results which will demonstrate how we use AI to analyse the data!

City AM

PwC plans to cut up to 600 jobs in the UK, according to a report from the  Financial Times on Tuesday . 

FT sources said the accountancy firm will launch a voluntary redundancy programme but will cut jobs on a compulsory basis if not enough people decide to leave. It will be directed mainly at  PwC ’s advisory business. 

PwC was the last of the  Big Four accounting firms   to hold out against redundancies but acted after a fall in the number of people resigning in recent months. Deloitte is cutting around 800 jobs in the UK, while EY and KPMG have both launched redundancy programmes.

Every year, Passle undertake research aimed at helping professional service firms elevate their marketing and digital performance. Before they launch their next research project, they wanted to reach out to you, our community, to get your take on what would be the most helpful.

You can have your say on their next research at the button below.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc1A20OOVHaV9XY5Rrn2croUL4V5sAnacS-Q_JiQ4iQymY__A/viewform?usp=send_form

Lexsoft Systems , a provider of IT and business process solutions, today announced the launch of the fully cloud-enabled version of its knowledge management (KM) solution, Lexsoft T3. Law firms can now establish a modern, best practice-led, global KM capability quickly and cost-effectively, eliminating the need for upfront IT costs and complex technical implementation associated with on-premises software implementation. T3 is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that is implemented over the industry leading document and email management platform, iManage Work in the cloud, in the highly secure Microsoft Azure environment. 

Lexsoft also announces seamless integration between T3 and iManage Insight+, iManage’s recently launched cloud-native knowledge search and management solution. Firms using iManage Work, can now transition their enterprise-wide KM capability to the cloud to truly harness their organisational knowledge at scale.

This workshop will be delivered by Pamela Cone, who specializes in ESG for Professional Services Firms, and is geared to those within a firm tasked with the firm's own ESG.

This full-day workshop on 8 November will focus on the steps to ESG for professional services firms, the growing expectations of clients and other stakeholders, and the existing and emerging regulations driving action .  There will be case studies and templates to help implement at your firm. 

Pam is offering a 50% discount for PSMG members

Please contact gail.jaffa@psmg.co.uk for the relevant code.

More information and the steps to register here:  ESG: Navigating the Shift from Default to Design (legalesg.com)

LexisNexis^® Enterprise Solutions today announces the launch and general availability of Lexis^® Everyfile , a new, powerful, web-based, matter management (and more) application, available on Microsoft Azure. Lexis Everyfile has been carefully developed to empower law firms to meet the increasing challenges of the legal industry, with a vision to be the single solution that works for everyone across the whole firm, working on any file in any part of the world. 

The application provides a firmwide foundation to enable efficient legal service delivery for every matter. Underpinning multiple work types and supporting lawyers who choose to work in a less prescriptive way, it is a digital file that offers the ability to manage all critical components of any legal transaction in a way that suits every lawyer, in any practice area.

Sharon joined the firm in September 2023 with over 20 years' experience, most recently at White & Case and Taylor Wessing.

This past month, Obelisk Support | B Corp Certified has reached another huge milestone in its 13-year existence by becoming only the twelfth legal business to obtain B Corp certification.

So why B Corp? For Dana Denis-Smith, obtaining B Corp status is about embedding sustainability and good stewardship in the DNA of your business and putting these crucial values at the core of everything you do.

All responsibly-minded founders worry that the good principles underpinning their business will become diluted over time but obtaining B Corp status prevents that from happening. Among other things, the certification requires you to change your Articles of Association to reflect your commitment to being a better business and to work in the interests of everyone involved and everybody that comes into contact with your business.

The Glue podcast, aimed at BD, marketing & communications teams in professional services firms has launched its second series.

The new episode considers whether the legal directories – publications such as Chambers & Partners and Legal 500 – really do influence how clients choose their lawyers or are they just an ego trip. Hosted by James Stringer, a former BD Director and now trainer, consultant and coach on BD and pitching.

The Glue is available through the link below but also on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2137500/13694278

Today, LexisNexis Legal & Professional ^®, a leading global provider of legal information and analytics, has released the latest “Gross Legal Product (GLP) Index ”.  This report predicts that the legal sector will grow by +2% in 2024 – suggesting that its growth trajectory is slowing. 

Despite exceptionally challenging market conditions over the past three years, the Index revealed that legal demand grew by +22% in 2021, +3% in 2022 and is expected to grow by +6% in 2023.

Vanessa was a talented and inspiring colleague who was highly respected and admired across Pinsent Masons. Her loss will be keenly felt throughout the firm.

Vanessa was a consummate professional and played a key role in helping grow Pinsent Masons over the last decade. Very much a specialist in her field, Vanessa was particularly knowledgeable and prominent in the leveraged finance market and, since joining in 2011, she made a significant contribution to the firm leading a team of finance lawyers in our London office. Vanessa was an intelligent and warm individual who was a dedicated and loving mother to her children and a good friend to so many of us.

International legal technology consultancy Pinnacle has announced its expansion into the APAC region with the hire of Scott Sonter, who was head of financial systems at Ashurst in Sydney, Australia.   

Sonter joins Pinnacle as principal consultant for APAC. A former solutions consultant, he joined Ashurst as 3E technical lead before moving into the role of financial systems manager and then head of finance.  Pinnacle has a longstanding relationship with Elite 3E.

In this rapidly shifting market, accessing up-to-date and robust, legal-market-specific compensation data and insight is needed more than ever. This annual research helps guide the salary, bonus and benefits strategies you need to attract and retain the best talent.

The deadline is nearly upon us for firms to sign up to Totum's Business Services Reward Survey 2023/24 , which promises comprehensive data insights and analysis of salary structures to inform compensation decision-making into 2024

Totum is hugely proud to announce it is now a Certified B Corporation, reflecting their longstanding and continuing commitment to make a positive difference to our world in all that they do. Coming at the same time as their business’s 20th anniversary, they are particularly delighted to gain this recognition, which very much reflects what has been their ethos from the start: that profit and caring can, and should, go hand in hand.

 

iManage , the company dedicated to Making Knowledge Work^TM, today announced that global law firm DLA Piper has selected iManage Cloud as the knowledge work platform of choice for its 46 offices across the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. 

The move to iManage Cloud will enable the Firm to meet its objectives for reducing its data centre footprint and provide a platform to support enhanced business capabilities and document-related process improvements – including improved collaboration, data capture, analytics, security, and knowledge management. 

“We anticipate a range of benefits by taking a cloud-first approach for the delivery of a document management service to our business,” said Paul Gilford, Chief Information Officer, DLA Piper International. “Moving to iManage’s Cloud platform will enable us to deliver a single, secure work environment to support seamless and intuitive collaboration across our global operations. The increased agility afforded by this move will enable us to deliver changes to our users faster and more efficiently”.

National law firm Browne Jacobson has appointed Henrietta Scott as its new Head of Marketing.

Henrietta joined the firm in August 2023 from Norton Rose Fulbright to lead its 30-strong marketing and business development team and to bring Browne Jacobson’s brand positioning to life. 

First appeared in Roll on Friday

Ropes & Gray has told its lawyers that they will need to be in the office four days a week, in order to get a bonus.

The Boston-headquartered firm had previously allowed its lawyers to work remotely on Mondays and Fridays. But, from November, the firm will require its lawyers to be in the office from Monday to Thursday, with Friday as the only "optional remote day."

The firm gave reasons for its change of policy in an internal memo to its UK and US lawyers: "[Our] strengths, which define and differentiate us, can only be realized to their fullest extent through in-person collaboration, learning and mentoring. Simply put, we need more people together, more often, more consistently."

Today, LexisNexis Legal & Professional ^® ,  a leading global provider of legal information and analytics, has released a new report entitled “Generative AI and the future of the legal profession”, which highlights a disconnect between in-house counsels’ and law firms’ expectation of generative AI adoption. 49% of in-house counsel expect their law firms to be using generative AI in the next 12 months, and of that percentage 11% expect firms to be already using the technology. Only 8% didn’t want AI used on their work. 

In contrast, 24% of firms believe their clients would not want them to use AI.

The survey of 1,175 UK legal professionals, conducted in May to June 2023, finds 87% are aware of generative AI tools – and of that group, 95% agree these tools will have an impact on the practice of law (38% said it will have a significant impact,11% said it will be transformative and 46% thought it would have “some impact”). Nearly three-quarters (70%) of in-house counsel agree or strongly agree that law firms should be using cutting-edge technology, including generative AI tools.

Totum are delighted to announce it is now a Certified B Corporation, reflecting their longstanding and continuing commitment to make a positive difference to our world in all that they do. Coming at the same time as their business’s 20 ^th  anniversary, they are particularly delighted to gain this recognition, which very much reflects what has been their ethos from the start: that profit and caring can, and should, go hand in hand.

‘As a recruitment firm, we have always believed we play a vital role at the heart of our sector bringing together individuals and firms in a way that prioritises honesty, integrity, and equity of opportunity for all,’ says Totum Director Deborah Gray . ‘We are thrilled to now join the wider community of Certified B Corporations that are similarly committed to making their businesses a force for good in the world.’

Pioneering sustainable finance lawyer Paul Watchman, who led the landmark 2005 UN initiative which devised a legal framework for ESG investing, has sadly died.

Long before his October 2005 Freshfields Report for the United Nations, before his driving advocacy for financially material and fiduciary aligned ESG, the window into the late Professor Paul Quayle Watchman's soul was crystal clear.

"His lifetime of work will never be forgotten" - a tribute to Professor Paul Watchman from his friend Paul Clements-Hunt can be found here  

The 2023 Bellwether survey report , entitled “Bold Ambitions?”, from LexisNexis was released today.

The report investigates the client acquisition and retention strategies of small law firms and solo practitioners in the UK, as well as the technology, tools and systems they're investing in to generate growth. The practice areas represented are commercial, private client, employment, property, family, and Wills & probate.

46% of firms expected to grow over the next 12 months, with 38% expecting to remain stable. Rather than merging, there is a strong desire to grow organically, with investment in business support functions.

Today, LexisNexis Legal & Professional ^®, a leading global provider of legal information and analytics has released their latest Bellwether report entitled “Bold Ambitions? ”.  It reveals that, whilst there is a desire for growth, the industry is less bullish than it was in 2021 when 66% predicted growth. 

"The previous Bellwether surveyed the legal market during the post-lockdown legal boom and prior to the cost-of-living crisis, so this shift in sentiment is understandable," says Debbie Sumner, Go-to-Market consultant at LexisNexis. “Organically growing revenue will be the theme of the year for many firms”, Sumner continued. 

When it comes to achieving growth, the Bellwether report reveals that most firms hope to acquire new clients and increase their business with existing clients. Only 13% of respondents said they plan to grow through Mergers or Acquisitions, a drop from 16% in 2022 and 15% in 2021. An easy plan in theory, but 81% said that attracting new business is going to be one of their top challenges.

Pinsent Masons’ former communications head, and founder of volunteering service Fifth Day, has died at the age of 40 following a battle with cancer.

Fred Banning, who passed away on Friday, was first diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer in 2020.

After being forced to step away from work following the diagnosis, he founded Fifth Day, which offers 30,000 law firm support staff across the U.K. access to similar pro bono opportunities as their lawyer colleagues.

The PSMG team would like to extend our heartfelt sympathies to his family, friends and many colleagues. A huge loss to all and to the legal sector.

The firm's "Public Holiday Swap" initiative, effective immediately, gives all its UK employees the choice to take up to three public holidays at another time that works for them in the same calendar year. The holidays that can be swapped are New Year's Day, early May bank holiday and Spring bank holiday, and this year, the Platinum Jubilee bank holiday.

Alison Brown, Executive Partner at Herbert Smith Freehills, says:

"This initiative provides a more inclusive approach that reflects the diversity of our people and the variety of holidays and observances that are celebrated across the firm. Many of these are central to different religions or cultures, and we hope people can use these swapped days to celebrate the occasions that matter to them with family, friends and loved ones."

Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday and the summer bank holiday are excluded from the policy in order to ensure that employees benefit from multi-day breaks which are spread evenly throughout the year.

In October 2021, a similar policy was launched on a one-year trial basis for all permanent employees and maximum-term contractors in Australia and has to date, been well-received.

More and more staff are growing weary of working from home as loneliness starts to trump convenience as reported in The Telegraph on 9th May 2023.

Just under 40pc of office workers now say they are  struggling with the downsides of working remotely , with less time spent with co-workers cited as the biggest downside.

One in 10 blame mental health problems on home working, according to a survey by software firm Ivanti.

The findings come as  bosses continue to push for more employees to return to the office , arguing that isolated working harms creativity and is bad for culture and training.

The number of remote jobs advertised on LinkedIn fell for the eleventh straight month in March, the professional networking service said.

Just one in 10 openings now offers the option of fully remote work, compared with almost one in six a year ago.

Hybrid working is also falling out of favour , with the share of roles allowing people to work a few days a week remotely also falling for the second month in a row.

Ngaire Moyes, LinkedIn’s UK country manager, said: “It’s very difficult to build and maintain a strong company culture when a significant chunk of your workforce isn’t ever in the office. How do you keep those employees engaged"?

As appeared in City AM 19th April 2023

NEARLY half of business leaders reckon AI could replace humans, new data out today shows, but experts think job losses caused by mass adoption of tools such as ChatGPT would be limited.

Some 44 per cent of C-suite executives think AI could perform tasks to a similar or better quality than humans, according to a poll of more than 1,000 business decision makers by YouGov.

The numbers illustrate smart technology’s capacity to trigger a huge shake up in the global workforce, helping workers palm off remedial tasks to computers to free up time to spend tackling more complex problems.

PSMG wishes to send huge congratulations to our friend and supporter Clare Quinn-Waters on her promotion to Partner and Business Development Director.

We are delighted to see the recognition of FRP Advisory of her talent and hard work.

Mishcon de Reya LLP ’s Chief Brand Officer,  Elliot Moss , has been named one of 2023's Trendsetters and Trailblazers, in a new report from Storians, B2B Marketing and RHR International.

Spotlighting leaders and innovators across professional services marketing, celebrating the shared traits that have been key to their success.

The Legally Safer Universities campaign spearheaded by ForThe100 with the assistance of TBD  has been shortlisted   for the Sheila McKechnie Foundation award in the Best Use of Law category.

Created in tribute to trade unionist and former director of Shelter, Dame Sheila McKenchie, the foundation set up in her name honours individuals or campaign groups that take on big organisations and challenge vested power. The Best Use of Law category celebrates “a campaign that has successfully used the law to drive change – whether using existing legislation to leverage rights and protections, or using strategic litigation to strengthen existing or create new legislation”.

After almost 20 years at Hogan Lovells Karen is happy to share that she has started a new position as Chief Business Development & Marketing Officer at PSMG member firm Kennedys.

Today, LexisNexis Legal & Professional, a leading global provider of legal information and analytics, has released a new report titled: Escaping the in-house legal labyrinth: using technology to demonstrate value.

The report, which surveyed 223 UK-based in-house lawyers, revealed legal departments are far more interested in using legal technology to increase productivity, streamline simple, low-level tasks and create more time for strategic work than they are in demonstrating their value to their wider organisations through data insights and analytics.

When asked about the benefits of legal technology, the top responses were 'makes the legal team more productive' (74%), ‘automates simple, repetitive tasks' (54%) and 'gives more time to focus on priority issues' (53%). A similar pattern emerged when respondents were asked about the future benefits of legal technology.

Passle

Law firms that don’t help clients keep on top of the changing legal landscape risk losing them to competitors who can, new research shows. 

General Counsel (GCs) say it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep abreast of industry news, with almost 90% spending upwards of five hours each week trying to keep themselves up to date – mostly in their spare time. 

The study by Passle , the leading content marketing software provider for professional services firms, found almost half (48%) will not work with law firms that do not keep them informed of relevant legal developments. More than 90% say their legal providers could be better at this and all of those questioned believed it was not just an expectation but the law firms’ responsibility.

By incorporating Grist's expertise in research-driven thought leadership programs, Momentum ITSMA will now complement its existing consulting, research and learning services that share a single purpose - to help ambitious clients achieve market-beating revenue growth.

"Thought leadership is a critical to gaining market share - our recent CBX* research shows that nearly 7 in 10 C-level executives say they are more likely to do business with a provider if they are impressed with their thought leadership. With the expertise of the team at Grist, we can continue to ensure our clients raise the bar and outperform their competitors."  Alisha Lyndon , CEO of Momentum ITSMA

The Grist team will continue to design research-based thought leadership programs and enable thought leadership teams, as well as helping Momentum ITSMA clients embed robust and distinctive thought leadership for strategic accounts.

James Stringer is joined by CRM experts Samantha Roberts of Deloitte and Ben Kent of Meridian West to discuss all aspects of CRM within professional services.  

Topics explored include:  

• Whether non-fee earners can play an important role in client relationships.
• What a successful CRM approach should look like.
• How you should choose which clients to involve in a key account programme.
• Whether any firms are managing client relationships differently.
• What will CRM in professional services look like in 10 years?

It can be found on Spotify Podcasts or https://www.buzzsprout.com/2137500/12460225

International Womens Day is an important day to reflect on how we can strive for equal opportunities.

For the 6th year running Totum has launched their "Totum report 2023: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion".

Included in the report are areas such as ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability and social mobility.

To read their full report please visit our Knowledge Bank

Burges Salmon has today launched a new report in which it asks industry experts about the major energy challenges being faced by industrial and logistics developers, investors and occupiers, in the context of ensuring energy resilience and achieving the UK Government’s Net Zero targets. 

Industrial and logistics buildings are playing a key role in the running of the post-pandemic economy. The boom in ecommerce has seen distribution centres become the backbone of the economy, acting as intermediaries in the supply chain. This extra demand has brought about increasing pressures on energy supply. 

Due to their sheer size, buildings can often expend huge amounts of energy due to heating, lighting and general operation. Whilst previously, energy costs formed a low proportion of overall running costs and energy provenance was less of a concern, spiralling prices and mounting public awareness of environmental issues has led to increased worry about energy security, affordability and sustainability. For continued success, the industrial and logistics sector must manage these concerns, whilst futureproofing its assets to meet tenant demand and achieve the UK’s 2050 Net Zero targets. 

Burges Salmon’s report addresses the challenges faced by the sector and also uncovers the opportunities in onsite generation and how developers and investors can adapt their strategies to benefit from this. The insights from the firm’s interviewees show that while there is no magic formula to enable energy resilience, onsite generation can play a key part in futureproofing such sites, so that they meet the expectations of future tenants and increasing energy regulation.

Findings from Totum’s Business Services Reward Survey 2023 show law firms competing hard on salaries, bonuses and benefits to secure the best business skills and capabilities from both within the professional services sector and beyond.

The Finance function in the legal sector leads the way in terms of salaries, particularly at the most senior Director and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) level. But other business services functions are not far behind in the salary stakes, according to Totum’s Business Services Reward Survey 2023.

Visit our Knowledge Bank for more information

Today, LexisNexis Legal & Professional, a leading global provider of legal information and analytics, has released an updated version of its Gross Legal Product (GLP) Index. 

The report reveals that, despite rising inflation, soaring energy prices, new regulations and financial sanctions, not to mention an economic recession, the legal sector grew by 3% in 2022 , with restructuring and insolvency, tax and competition law all making a heavy contribution. 

The index, which pulls together historic data across 12 areas of the law to forecast future demand, predicts the legal sector as a whole will grow by a further 6% throughout 2023 . These findings align with the latest Office for National Statistics data , which found the legal sector made £4bn in revenues between November to December 2022, an increase of 6%.

For a copy of the Report please visit the PSMG Knowledge Bank

Man Bites Dog and BNY Mellon win Best Banking Communications Campaign and Best Strategic Communications/Corporate Brand Campaign.

Huge congratulations to both teams who worked on the insightful campaign to highlight the importance of investment inclusivity to the ESG agenda

Man Bites Dog worked in partnership with BNY Mellon Investment Management to create an international campaign that helped the firm engage the world's largest under-addressed investment market - women.  

Kennedys are delighted to announce they have teamed up with The Children’s Society to fund vital mental health and wellbeing support for vulnerable young people.  

A fundraising target of £120,000 has been set over the next three years to support the UK-wide work of the charity and its affiliates, Children 1^st  in Scotland and Youth Action in Northern Ireland.

This will go towards  making sure that children in need have enough to eat, a safe place to stay, and access to counselling for victims of abuse, exploitation and neglect. We will also be involved in community volunteering and be providing pro bono legal support. Several colleagues have already signed up to run this year’s London marathon – one of many fundraisers planned.

Today, James Stringer launches a new podcast called 'The Glue'. It is unashamedly for us – the BD, Marketing and Comms colleagues who work in professional service firms.  James believes these teams are the glue that holds much of their firms’ activities together, hence the name.
 
In this first episode he  discuss our role as non-fee earners, where and how we can have the most impact and what skills and attributes we need now and in the future with  Stefanie Hoogklimmer   of  Venturis Consulting Group   and  Eddie Bowman   of Eddie Bowman Consulting. They have deep experience working for the Big Four and law firms.

Mills & Reeve is pleased to announce that Claire Clarke has been elected to continue for a third term as managing partner of Mills & Reeve working with Charles Staveley as senior partner who will take over from Justin Ripman in September.
 
Claire says "It has been an enormous privilege and honour to have performed this role for the last eight years and I’m excited to be able to continue and seek to continue help the firm build on the growth and success it has achieved in recent years".
 
"I also want to mention and thank Justin Ripman, Mills & Reeve’s senior partner, who I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working alongside since 2015 when we both took up our management roles, and Charles Staveley, who will be taking over from Justin in September and I very much look forward to working with going forward".
 

Next stop the Tech Nation UK showcase for Rising Stars!

MyCustomerLens is chuffed to announce it has been recognised as one of Scotland's most innovative tech companies.

In particular they're excited that the judges also saw the strength of their value proposition and the future scalability of their solution.

We’re excited to announce that  Man Bites Dog – The Strategic Ideas Company   and  BNY Mellon Investment Management   are shortlisted for two awards in the PRCA City and Financial Awards 2023! We are nominated for the Best Banking Communications Campaign Award and Best Strategic Communications / Corporate Brand Campaign.
 
BNY Mellon Investment Management challenged Man Bites Dog to create an integrated global campaign that would engage the world’s largest under-addressed investment market - women - and help close the Gender Investment Gap. The Pathway to Inclusive Investment campaign built the case for inclusive investment through the largest ever global research study into consumer investment behaviour and investment industry bias. 

Cripps corporate team has, once again, reinforced its place as the South East's leading law firm, winning twice at the South East Dealmakers Awards.

They were awarded Corporate Law Firm of the Year, and also picked up the award for Private Equity / Venture Capital Deal of the Year for their work acting on behalf of HiROC in its Series B funding round.

Today, LexisNexis Legal & Professional, a leading global provider of legal information and analytics, has released a new investigative report entitled “Calling time on the billable hour.” The report looks at why almost half of all external legal spend is now taking place through alternative fee arrangements such as flat or fixed fees, a major increase since pre-pandemic times. 

For decades, the vast majority of law firms have billed by the hour, and while its demise has long been predicted but never proven, a strong shift in billing behaviour had finally happened as clients push for fee structures with greater clarity over pricing.

Using in-depth interviews with senior partners at top law firms and general counsel at leading businesses, the report digs into the pros and cons of the billable hour model, the challenges of pricing matters when using alternative fee structures and how these trends are likely to develop in the future.

Charlotte is delighted to share her exciting news that she's starting a new position as Business Development Director at  Serle Court !

Good luck Charlotte from everyone at PSMG.  Much deserved.

Honoured to join forces with  Daniel Quinn   and take on the challenge of being Co-Chief Marketing Officers at  Gilbert + Tobin .

We can't wait to get stuck in and make a real difference in 2023 with our fantastic team! 

Roy says “I am honored to continue to serve on the  Legal Marketing Association   International Board of Directors, now as its president. I look forward to the furthering the association’s important work,” said Sexton. “LMA will continue to provide new and outstanding programming and opportunities for professional development and networking to our members and advocate for our profession, locally, regionally and internationally.”

Almudena Arpón de Mendívil y Aldama , partner at law firm  Gómez-Acebo & Pombo   in Madrid, Spain is announced as the new President of the  International Bar Association   (IBA). Ms Arpón de Mendívil is​​​​​ the first woman to hold the position in 20 years and only the second in the Association’s 76-year history. Her tenure is for the two calendar years of 2023 and 2024. She succeeds Sternford Moyo of Zimbabwe. 

As of 1 January 2023, Mishcon de Reya and Taylor Vinters have completed their merger, and are now one firm. Over 200 people are joining Mishcon de Reya, bringing with them a wealth of knowledge and experience providing services to innovators and entrepreneurs.

Congratulations to David Mann and Saleem Fazal, Freehold Founders and Ambassadors, who have been named in King Charles III's inaugural New Year Honours List.

David and Saleem will both receive MBE's in recognition of the work Freehold has done in making the British real estate sector more inclusive for LGBTQ+ professionals and for the support Freehold has given to the community since 2011.

With a deadline of 22 December to participate in our salary survey, there is no time to lose!

Sign up now and join the firms that are already set to receive Totum's cutting-edge research into salaries and bonus structures for business services professionals in law.

Featuring both established and new/emerging roles across all business services functions and seniority levels, this survey will provide the most comprehensive insights yet into how firms are rewarding business professionals.

If you participate you will receive, at the end of January 2023, all the data covering salary and bonus structures across business services functions, roles and seniority levels. 

In addition, you will receive an in-depth report detailing market trends across reward strategies and you will be invited to join a webinar to discuss the results.

MyCustomerLens is delighted to have been chosen as one of the most innovative tech companies in Glasgow, and they're heading for the Scottish regional final in January.

So how have they become part of a collection of the UK's most exciting tech companies?

Paul Roberts, CEO and co-founder "it's because we're bringing a fresh and innovative approach to a previously neglected area of customer feedback - B2B. Yes, I know B2B customer feedback isn't a sexy start-up topic, but it's a very exciting area right now".

PSMG longstanding friend and member at Faskens in Canada has been appointed Director at Norfolk Association for Country Living.

Having moved to live in the countryside Lynne felt it was really important for her to give back to the community in which she is settling.

Congratulations Lynne.

DXC Legal team are thrilled to announce they have won the highly competitive Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Award - Asia Pacific 2022.

Presented at a ceremony Thursday evening in Singapore, a huge congratulations to the whole APAC team, what a fantastic team effort.

The concept, design, development, testing, production, training, deployment and successful use of Online Approvals is a core building block in their journey to a truly digital legal department and a high performance culture based on data – they are really living it! Congrats to the whole team!

To deliver insights into today’s salary and bonus structures for business services professionals in law, Totum are delighted to announce that they are (re)launching Totum’s Business Services Reward Survey. This is your chance to participate in this cutting-edge research, the findings from which will inform and strengthen your compensation and reward strategy at a time of significant change and uncertainty.   

Their comprehensive benchmarking survey will provide detailed insights into salaries, bonuses and benefits agreed across firms, business services functions and roles. The research will cover new and emerging business services roles, as well as findings on remote worker salaries and cost-of-living payments, ensuring that the report reflects the very latest developments impacting our sector. 

Sustainability is a worldwide issue and so the technology industry should take a global approach to collaboration and policymakers – as long as it is backed by action. 

That’s the view stated by three industry commentators in a new report, How Sustainable is the Technology Sector? Part 2 from international thought leadership consultancy, iResearch Services.Emanuel Kolta, Senior Analyst with mobile market information provider GSMA Intelligence, says, “The whole topic of sustainability is global. And regulating these companies at a country level can be ineffective in many ways. So, if it’s a global issue, we have to speak about this globally. By its nature, we are using country-level regulations. We need to sit down at a global level – obviously, this is difficult and very political. We need to utilise bodies like the ITU and the United Nations (UN).” 

While Gurpreet Purewal, Vice President Sales – Thought Leadership at iResearch Services, says, “The more the tech industry has influence across the political agenda and policymaking, working with each of the industry groups and bodies, they’re going to be fundamental to transform and make sure that we begin to reduce our emissions, improve societal benefits, and effect positive change. So, I’m hugely optimistic about what technology can do.”

To read the report please visit our Knowledge Bank

The Rickard Luckin report highlighting the oldest family businesses in Essex is now available to download.

Essex is blessed with a vast array of great family-owned businesses, including a number that we are proud to have as our longstanding clients.

The legal sector’s pricing function has big ambitions to take a pivotal place in the legal sector’s commercial future, according to the findings from our latest survey on pricing teams. But will the ever-increasing daily workload make it difficult to achieve those goals? We report on our survey’s in-depth findings.

At Totum, we have worked with legal pricing functions for over 10 years, back when teams were still in their infancy or, indeed, did not yet exist. Since then, we have watched them grow, gain value and contribute massively to sustained growth in the legal sector. Pricing played a critical role most recently through the pandemic, supporting sustained law firm profitability through uncertainty. But as the world shifts once more and firms face new economic turbulence, the pressure is on for pricing teams to continue to make a difference.

Visit our knowledge bank to obtain a copy of the report

The Times has named B P Collins as one of its Best Law Firms 2023 with its commercial dispute resolution practice commended for the second year running.

MC is excited to announce top global Clifford Chance executive, Sophie Schwass   will be joining MC as CEO in February. 

Sophie, a New Zealander, with 13 years’ experience in global leadership roles is currently Chief Operating Officer for the UK region at Clifford Chance, one of the world’s ten largest law firms.

Sophie’s appointment is another example of the ongoing commitment to generational change and growth at NZ’s largest litigation firm. 

Man Bites Dog is really proud to announce their colleague Lauren Street has been promoted to her new role of Associate Director along with two of her colleagues.

Mills & Reeve has been ranked as the 33rd most innovative law firm in the Financial Times’ Innovative Lawyers: Europe list, with acclaim for diversity, inclusion, and client care.

The annual awards celebrate companies passionate about driving innovation in the legal sector. Innovation is at the forefront of our culture at Mills & Reeve, allowing us to spot new opportunities for improvement and to help solve our clients’ problems most effectively. Mills & Reeve have been recognised by the  Financial Times   in prior years but have placed higher in the rankings this year than ever before.

Claire is one of just five UK entrepreneurs to be selected to join the prestigious EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women™ EMEIA Class of 2022.    

Claire Mason said: “It’s such an honour to be selected as one of the 5 entrepreneurs representing the UK in this year’s 52-strong global cohort. I’m really looking forward to learning from all these inspiring women and going on this journey together!   

“Thanks to EY for this important initiative to promote female entrepreneurship and support women-owned and led businesses to scale.”  

Today, LexisNexis Legal & Professional, a leading global provider of legal information and analytics, has released an updated version of its Gross Legal Product (GLP) Index, focusing solely on the predicted growth in corporate, commercial and competition law. Inspired by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Gross Legal Product framework pulls data from a wide range of different datapoints to predict growth across multiple practice areas of the law. 

The report reveals that, after a ferocious post-COVID return to growth, the market is likely to cool substantially.  The post-lockdown boom that saw demand for legal expertise go through the roof in the second half of 2021 may be short-lived. A new set of challenges including rising inflation, new regulations and sanctions, and the threat of a recession appear to have stagnated growth for some practice areas – although not all.

Visit our Knowledge Bank to obtain a full copy of the report

International law firm DAC Beachcroft is pleased to announce a new electric bike scheme, in partnership with Big Issue eBikes.

The firm is sponsoring 20 eBikes for exclusive use by DACB colleagues as part of a scheme being run by ShareBike UK in partnership with the Big Issue Group, to create bike-sharing solutions in combination with social impact.

The scheme operates as an employability project for homeless and vulnerably-housed people by recruiting and retraining people who were previously unemployed and supporting them back into work.

DACB’s eBikes will be serviced and maintained by people who are  facing barriers to work in Bristol, through the Big Issue Group.

This was the day that after nine long years Greg finally achieved his long-held vision of ‘graduating’ from Henley Business School (University of Reading)  with a doctorate in leadership. While he passed his Viva in 2020, Covid meant the in-person ceremonies had to be delayed to this year.

Like many people he knows he is guilty of not stopping often enough to smell the flowers; always eager to move on to the next task or thing to be ticked off the to-do list. But I do want to mark Saturday 17 September 2022.

We at PSMG are hugely proud of his achievement

It was an exciting evening for Burness Paull at the Scottish Legal Awards, as representatives of the firm picked up two awards at last night’s ceremony that celebrated the best of Scottish legal practice.

Tamar Tammes was awarded the prestigious accolade of Managing Partner of the Year in recognition of her successful strategic leadership of the firm, that has combined strong financial performance with a keen focus on further enhancing the firm’s respectful and inclusive culture.

The evening also saw Burness Paull’s employment team recognised with the award for Employment Law Team of the Year, largely based on the instrumental support they provided clients around the exceptional HR issues posed by the Covid pandemic.

Strengthening your position and showing you are truly committed in a new region can be challenging but having an award winning Real Estate team should help!  After opening their Oxford office earlier this year, Mills & Reeve are delighted to receive recognition for their work in the local marketplace by winning Property Law Firm of the Year at the prestigious Oxford Property Festival Awards, by UK Property Forums . 

Collyer Bristow are delighted to welcome Kylie Dwyer to their senior management team as Director of Human Resources.

Kylie has almost 20 years of HR experience and joins the firm from Baker McKenzie after a career with Allen & Overy

Lee is today riding his bike 126km with colleagues in memory of his colleague Lucy Boyle who tragically passed away way too young recently.

Simmons & Simmons sadly lost their brilliant colleague and super cyclist Lucy Boyle a few weeks ago. Lucy was a founding member of the Simmons & Simmons Cycling Club and joined the club's inaugural anniversary bike ride last year, cycling 125km for 125 years. Those who rode with Lucy recall what a pleasure it was to ride with her and her boundless enthusiasm.

If you can,please do donate to the charity identified by Lucy's parents here (Lucy Boyle fundraiser )

More information overleaf.

As we all look to the remainder of 2022 and achieving our goals, we are delighted to announce that we have partnered with CogniClick  to bring you a live industry comparison benchmark.

How important is ongoing improvement and professional development in your firm? And more importantly how does this compare to peer firms?

You can compare your goals and concerns around professional development to peer firms and receive the full report personalised for your organisation by accessing 12 quick questions here . You will also see real time results.

IResearch's VP of Sales - Thought Leadership, Gurpreet Purewal is featured as one of TechRound ’s Tech Leaders of 2022!

You can hear more about his recent work on  sustainability in technology on the iResearch Services  podcast, The Thought Leader's Voice, and in their research reports: How Sustainable is Tech?"

Totum’s Foundation aims to provide funds, resources and support to help individuals and organisations across employability, education, health and the environment

They are a small business compared to some, but their influence extends wide – they know they can play their part in improving people’s lives, making a positive difference to individuals and their wider community.

We are delighted to announce that Cripps has been shortlisted in the 'Alliance of the Year' category at this years’ British Legal Technology Awards for their innovative work with Sprint Valley.

After two years in the making The Inner Circle Wu Xing Audible Book One - a historical novel written and narrated by long time PSMG supporter, Patrick Dransfield, is now available to download on Audible, the world's biggest library of audio books. 

The rise of the Chief Operating Officer (COO) is arguably one of the most important developments in the sector in recent years. As firms have faced increasing competitive pressures, and business services functions have grown to support internal and external change, the COO has taken a central position in determining the efficiency and consequently productivity of the modern legal business.

Visit our Knowledge Bank to obtain a copy of the report.

Credited with coining ‘ESG’ in May 2004 and delivering the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) for the late UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Paul has been at the forefront of breakthrough developments in responsible investment and sustainable finance for over 30 years.

Paul is also a former United Nations official and served as a Founding Board Member and UN representative to the PRI. He has worked extensively with the private sector developing and implementing sustainable business models.

Paul is a highly valued speaker on the evolution and deployment of sustainable finance and responsible investment globally. His career spans roles as an entrepreneur, an energy and environment policy specialist and as a journalist.

RollOnFriday - the leading provider of news and views on the UK legal sector - has named Burges Salmon the best law firm to work at 2022.

Respondents within the business had the opportunity to rate how satisfied they were with their career development, pay, management, work/life balance and their firm’s culture. 

Browne Jacobson has become the first law firm to join the O Shaped movement. Founded by PSMG annual summit keynote Dan Kayne, O Shaped was formed to make the legal profession better and to create a greater emphasis on a more rounded approach to the legal profession and provide customers with a better service in a more diverse, inclusive and healthier environment.

Fred Banning, former head of communications at Pinsent Masonshas launched an initiative to provide volunteering opportunities for legal business operations staff equivalent to those already widely available to lawyers. 
  
Not-for-profit venture Fifth Day is being spearheaded by Fred and is targeted at an estimated 30,000 staff working in the legal sector. 
  
It sets out to connect professionals in areas including IT services, finance, human resources, and business development, marketing and communications with charities and community groups seeking assistance, including in trustee and project leadership roles.  
  

LexisNexis InterAction , the leading client relationship management (CRM) solution specifically designed for legal and professional services, has demonstrated that adoption of its hybrid cloud platform is gaining significant momentum globally since the pandemic.

Firms of all sizes, most notably across countries in Northern Europe, the United States, Chile, South Africa, Australia and India, are investing in the InterAction hybrid cloud solution, driven by the imperative to empower both lawyers and business development strategists to leverage firm-wide relationship intelligence with this business-critical CRM tool in  remote and hybrid working environments, triggered by the pandemic.

Since January 2021, the solution has seen a 150 percent increase in the number of firms deploying the solution, with individual user numbers growing by 94 percent.

Creative problem-solver Madelaine Oppert has been appointed Senior Marketing Manager for leading international thought leadership specialist iResearch Services. 

Madelaine is skilled at conceptualising, implementing, and overseeing innovative marketing strategies and brand positioning and is an experienced team leader.

She says joining iResearch Services at its London headquarters is an exciting opportunity. “All marketers strive for our brands to be considered thought leaders; it is so vital for us to stand out from our competitors and cut through the daily clutter facing our consumers and clients.”

iResearch Services counts some of the world’s top financial services, technology, sustainability and professional services companies among its clients. 

Nearly 300 in-house lawyers responded to DLA Piper's WIN Insights survey recently, to help them better understand challenges in the role. From budgets and strategy to flexible working, the results of the survey are explored in their new WIN Insights report.

Find out what’s changed in the role and read their key findings –

Rickard Luckin has been recognised by Best Companies, the industry-leading employee engagement specialist, as one of the best medium-sized companies to work for in the UK. 

The latest results, which were announced Friday 20 May, showed that as well as retaining the firm’s 1 star, ‘very good’ level of employee engagement, Rickard Luckin featured in three Q2 2022 categories: 

• 7^th Best Accountancy Firm in the UK (up from 8^th)
• 38^th Best Company in the East of England (up from 67^th)
• 76^th Best Medium-Sized Company to work for in the UK (NEW entry in the national listing!)

Award-winning tax and accountancy firm Rickard Luckin has announced a number of promotions reflecting the strength of talent within the firm.

Rob Montgomery (Senior Payroll Executive), Claire Liddell (Tax Client Manager) and Sarah Johnston (HR & People Development Manager) have all been recognised for their excellent contribution.

Many small law firms are thinking big when it comes to the tech they need to see them through another period of profound change   

Totum is delighted to announce the launch of its inaugural ‘Best Business Leaders’ awards 2022 – designed to recognise and award those ‘Heads of’, Directors and Chiefs who inspire, transform and deliver excellence in business services in the professional services sector.

Championing leadership achievements in business services functions, Totum’s ‘Best Business Leaders’ awards will go to a select number of exemplary role models, who have excelled in leadership during 2021-22.

Award nominations are easy to complete and are welcomed from leaders across professional services functions including, but not limited to, business development, marketing, HR, technology, finance, operations, knowledge management, risk and compliance, practice and business management, change and transformation.

Nominations can be submitted until 3 June 2022, with winners announced on 7 July 2022. 

Award-winning law firm, Weightmans, has partnered with Everton in the Community to bring a new and exciting education programme for young children in L4. 

Weightmans, who now become an official partner of Everton in the Community, will work together with the charity to launch a pilot programme which will work with young children - from birth to primary school age - to help bridge the education gap exacerbated by the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Data suggests that children presenting at nursery provision in a number of areas in Liverpool are below their key milestone expectation levels due to the lack of stimulation during lockdown.

The nurture project will tackle education inequality with its delivery focusing on confidence, experience through physical, outdoor and technology learning, as well as skills and knowledge through movement and literacy. 

Weightmans has made a generous £15,000 donation towards the project which will also include naming rights to a purpose-built nurture room, within the Goodison Campus.  The nurture room will provide aspirational and motivational toys to learn through play.

Weightmans has also committed to providing support through mentoring, volunteering and skills sharing.

Top 100 UK law firm BDB Pitmans has boosted its marketing offering with the triple appointment of Alexa Downing as Content and Public Relations Manager, Natalie Pavelin as Business Development Manager and Sarah Harman as Senior Events Executive.

BD and Marketing Director Kevin Peake commented:

‘Our marketing effort has great momentum at the moment and we were delighted to recently be listed as one of best Law firms for content engagement. Alexa, Natalie and Sarah will play a key role in helping BDB Pitmans as a differentiated brand in the legal space.’

Rickard Luckin has announced the key appointments of Matthew Rowe (Head of Marketing) and Jasmin Bice (Marketing Manager) into the firm’s Marketing Team. 

Matthew brings over 20 years' experience to the firm and is an award-winning senior marketing manager, who has direct experience of marketing to private clients, corporates, professional practices and non-profit organisations. 

Matthew and Jasmin will work alongside existing team members Kim Aaronricks (Marketing Manager), Debbie Ryall (CRM & Data Manager) and Alfie Moore (Marketing Executive Apprentice).

The team is based in Chelmsford but supports colleagues across Rickard Luckin’s offices in Basildon and Southend too.

On International Women's Day, leading international thought leadership specialist iResearch Services announces five key female appointments and promotions. These come after notable business wins.

They are:

Shabnam Gangar, VP Marketing
Rachael Kinsella, Editor-in-Chief
Yi Ling Huang, Editor
Sara Hopper, Senior Graphic Designer
Jacqueline Miller, HR and Wellbeing Manager

As heads of their departments, Shabnam and Rachael move into new roles to oversee the expansion and provide data-driven thought leadership content for new markets.

iResearch Services counts some of the world’s top financial services, technology, sustainability and professional services companies among its clients. It has offices in the UK, India and the United States.

Passle is set to double its headcount in America – just six months after opening its first US office.  

The business development and marketing software provider for professional services, which boasts three of the five ‘magic circle’ law firms among its clients, says a surge in demand has accelerated its plans for transatlantic growth.  

The new team, based in Maryland’s capital Annapolis, close to Washington DC, already has an impressive portfolio of US clients including Reed Smith, Linklaters and DLA Piper.  

They expect to sign at least 20 more big name law firms over the next 12 months and are expanding in readiness. Four roles are up for grabs with the opportunity to work as part of the industry leader in business development and marketing technology for legal and consultancy firms.  

Passle, which launched in the UK in 2013, now has more than 100 clients on its books including high-profile firms such as Deloitte, Freshfields, Alvarez & Marsal, Linklaters, DLA Piper, Reed Smith, Ropes & Gray and Alix Partners.

  James Barclay is the driver behind the US expansion and says just six months in, the move is already exceeding expectations. 

Tania Cox has been appointed Client Technical Support at Passle.

Additionally, Innovation Manager,  Catriona Wolfenden , has been promoted to Product and Innovation Director where she will be running a team of Product and Innovation partners, legal engineers and technologists, and product managers. The team will be implementing the firm’s new product and innovation goals across the business, ensuring that all clients have the opportunity to take advantage of the wide variety of product and innovation offerings that it has developed.

National law firm  Weightmans   has announced the promotion of  Stuart Whittle   to Chief Innovation and Technology officer, a new role for the firm with direct accountability for providing an increased service and product offering to its clients.

Based in Liverpool, Whittle joined Weightmans in 1993 as a trainee solicitor and worked as a professional indemnity lawyer until 2003 when he began working across the firm’s operational business. Since then, he has held roles including Head of Information Services, Information Services and Operations Director, and most recently held the role of Business Services and Innovation Director overseeing numerous operations functions, including IT, Innovation and Business Change.

White & Case is proud to be acknowledged by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation for their commitment to LGBTQ+ workplace equality, earning a perfect score in its annual Corporate Equality Index for the 14th consecutive year. Well done to all involved!

The second edition of the award-winning Strategic Tendering for Professional Services; Win more, Lose Less is published in March. Matthew Fuller and Tim Nightingale have significantly updated and expanded their first edition to bring all the issues, challenges and opportunities revolving around pitching for work bang up to date. The book is available for pre order through Amazon or Kogan Page.

Mills & Reeve has been shortlisted in the wellbeing category of the 2022 Lexis Nexis awards to be held on March 30. It’s one of three nominations for the firm, the others being diversity and inclusion, and legal services innovation.

How to Advance Your Career in Professional Services Marketing is a new book from Dominic Ayres, whose experience includes roles at DLA Piper, Slaughter and May, and currently at Eversheds Sutherland. The book is designed to contain all the things you need to consider and act upon whether you are starting your marketing career in the professional services industry or are currently working towards senior roles. The book is available on Amazon.

Meridian West has been awarded a 2021 Forsta AIR (Achievement in Insight and Research) Award in the agency category for the second year in a row. The awards recognise those creatively breaking new ground in market research and driving the future of the global insights industry.

Rory Grant has joined Australian firm Gilbert + Tobin as Director of Business Development. He was previously at Allens in Australia and Osborne Clark in London. Gilbert + Tobin is recognised as a leading transactions, regulatory and disputes law firm, handling some of the most complex transactions in Australia. The firm is trusted by clients on sensitive regulatory investigations and approvals, litigation, and Royal Commissions. 

Rebecca Wright has joined Clifford Chance's senior marketing leadership team as Director, Global Head of Client & Market Development, Global Financial Markets & Banks.  Most recently Rebecca was with Kirkland & Ellis and her experience includes senior international leadership roles at White & Case, Watson Farley & Williams, and CMS.

Skadden's European marketing team has seen some new joiners already in 2022, with  Pauline Hermet joining their Paris office as the Marketing Lead for France. She joins from her time with Winston & Strawn, Endeavour Mining and EY.

In addition, Patricia Seoane has also joined as the Marketing Coordinator for Europe. She joins after time with Cleary and BNP Paribas.

The second edition of the award winning Strategic Tendering for Professional Services; Win more, Lose Less is to be published on 3^rd March – published by Kogan Page. Authors Matthew Fuller and Tim Nightingale have significantly updated and expanded their first edition (published in 2017) to bring all the issues, challenges and opportunities revolving around pitching for work bang up to date. This is a highly practical guide, targeted at anyone involved in putting together a competitive pitch, be it partners, clients, BD professionals or procurement specialists – and offering clear and commercial guidance, supported by relevant case studies. The book is available for pre order through Amazon or Kogan Page

Norton Rose Fulbright has appointed partner Caroline May as its first head of sustainability in Europe, Middle East and Asia, driving the implementation of sustainable and environmental best practice across its business operations. 

nortonrosefulbright.com

New PSMG member iResearch Services has expanded its teams in London and India with a raft of key appointments. Gurpreet Purewal has joined as VP of Sales - Thought Leadership; Rachael Kinsella, as Editor; Shabnam Gangar as AVP Marketing, and Sara Hopper, joining as Senior Graphic Designer and Videographer. You can read more from the team in this issue

iresearchservices.com

With a considerable rise in job opportunities for business services practitioners across professional services firms, Totum is growing its own recruitment team across BD and marketing, HR and legal operations, transformation and technology.

www.totumpartners.com

Simmons & Simmons has partnered with HighNetWork   to roll out an app that provides staff with daily business development challenges (cards) to encourage regular client interactions. They range in size from six to 24 mins and cover a wide variety of topics. 

simmons-simmons.com

LexisNexis has published its latest Bellwether report. It shows 31% of firms have outperformed profit expectations since the pandemic. Perceptions of the future market are bullish, with 93% having confidence in their firm’s future – higher than all pre-pandemic scores.

You can download the report here .

Earshot Strategies, which offers podcast consultancy services, production, promotion, and training for corporate and institutional clients worldwide has marked four years in business with the launch of a new website addressing the seismic rise in popularity of the content and marketing platform.

earshotstrategies.com

Hardwicke officially changed its name to Gatehouse Chambers this summer. The change coincided with a move to state of the art and impressive new premises at 1 Lady Hale Gate, Gray’s Inn.

Man Bites Dog has partnered with Women in Journalism to conduct a major new study on gender inequality in UK journalism and media. The gender imbalance in media has a significant impact on business, editorial and content decisions, influencing which stories are told and who tells them.

Their research examines the opinions of 1,200 UK journalists on gender diversity in journalism and its impact on female journalists, the media and society more broadly. 

Lexsoft Systems

Javier Magaña García, Technical Director at Lexsoft Systems, offers his views on the drivers of knowledge management (KM) in the professional services sectors in 2022

Totum

Nominate your rising star

Totum are celebrating the rising stars of marketing and business development by recognising the efforts of the next generation of talented professionals. If you know a marketing and BD professionals at Assistant, Coordinator, Exec and Senior Executive level and you think they have gone above and beyond, get nominating. 'Win £500 vouchers of your choice, a one-to-one mentorship and market recognition!'

It couldn’t be easier to nominate yourself or one of your colleagues.

For more information totumpartners.com/rising-star-award-marketing-business-development/ or contact Joanna Milne risingstaraward@totumpartners.com

PSMG managing partner Gail Jaffa joined the panel of the weekly podcast from Cambridge Marketing College (CMC) along with CMC ‘s Kiran Kapur and Nigel Clark, the CMC’s professional services tutor. You can listen here . (https://lightbluemedia.podbean.com/e/professional-services-marketing/

LexisNexis UK

The report highlights that 31% of firms have outperformed profit expectations since the pandemic. Perceptions of the future market are bullish, with 93% having confidence in their firm’s future – higher than all pre-pandemic scores.

Unlike the larger end of the market, smaller law firms predominantly grew organically, rather than higher risk M&A. Many firms reported that they had grown and diversified practice areas by acquiring staff that had been laid off by other firms quickly and easily

LexisNexis Legal & Professional®,

The Big 4 accountancy firms have continued their advance into legal services, but are they likely to supplant traditional law firms? Do they want to? Unpicking their aims and strategies, this report asks what makes the Big 4 different and what traditional law firms can do about it. 

Today, LexisNexis Legal & Professional®, a leading global provider of legal information and analytics has released an investigative report entitled “Are the Big Four reshaping the future of legal services?”  

Rather than suggesting that traditional law firms should be afraid of the Big 4 and their desire to poach high-value legal work, the report argues that the Big 4 are setting on an altogether different strategy and benefiting from the changing way legal services are delivered through ALSPs.

From in-depth interviews with lawyers from across the sector, the report tracks what’s changed and why. 

Kevin Matthews, previously Marketing Director at Leathwaite, has joined Deminor as Global Head of Marketing. 

Litera acquires UK-based Concep to combine email and marketing capabilities with data insights from the Firm Intelligence platform to grow client businesses

During the course of 2020 and the Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd, a number of legal bloggers started to investigate historic legal figures, including Lord Hardwicke, the 18^th  century Lord Chancellor.  Lord Hardwicke was one of two authors of the Yorke-Talbot opinion in 1729 which was relied on by slave owners as providing legal justification for slavery for many years.

The premises of Hardwicke Building, named by Lincoln’s Inn, became the name of our chambers and the building which we have occupied since 1991.

Time for a change.

Former Financial Times Business Development Director, Gurpreet Purewal promoted to VP of Sales – Thought Leadership and Kevin Anthony promoted to Associate Director - Thought Leadership Sales.  

New PSMG member iResearch Services, the data-driven B2B marketing agency, has expanded its teams in London and India with a raft of key appointments. 

Demonstrating continued momentum in the UK market, iResearch Services has welcomed Gurpreet Purewal as VP of Sales - Thought Leadership, Rachael Kinsella, joining as Editor, Shabnam Gangar, who has been appointed as AVP Marketing and Sara Hopper, joining as Senior Graphic Designer and Videographer. 

Leading independent law firm Burness Paull has underlined its commitment to diversity and the health of its staff by appointing a dedicated Inclusion & Wellbeing Manager.

In what is believed to be a first for a corporate law firm in Scotland, Emma Smith has taken up a new post dedicated to overseeing the firm’s respect and inclusion agenda on a full-time basis.

The role will work in partnership with departments across the firm to embed the principles of respect, inclusion and wellbeing in its internal and external relationships and processes.

Emma will also liaise with the firm’s existing BeIncluded strategy group to provide in-depth, specialist advice around Respect & Inclusion (R&I) and wellbeing within Burness Paull and help to design, implement and embed new approaches to strengthen the firm’s status as an employer of choice for high-performing talent.

Akin Gump, an AmLaw 50 firm with 20 offices worldwide and over 900 lawyers, is rolling out CRM solution, LexisNexis InterAction, as its firmwide business development platform, across every practice area. The firm is also looking to integrate CRM with other systems such as email marketing, alumni management, experience management, pipeline management and proposal system.

The aim is to create a streamlined interface that provides the firm's lawyers with insight on every current and potential client, with centralised data.

Global law firm Ashurst today announces the appointment of Laura Nicholls as Chief Business Development Officer, based in London.

Laura has over 20 years' experience of strategic business development, gained in regional and global roles across Australia, Asia and the UK in a range of industries and practices. She joins the firm from Clifford Chance where she was Director and Global Head of Client & Market Development for Global Financial Markets, with responsibility for managing the firm's global finance and capital markets practice and bank client focus programme. Laura also previously managed Freshfields' global business development and marketing programme across the financial institutions sector and ran the dedicated global FIG CRM programme.

Two local businesses, Client Talk and Doing Diversity Differently, have entered into partnership to improve diversity in professional services firms. Both businesses are based in the Thames Valley and a chance encounter in 2019, which led to multiple collaborations over 2020, has strengthened yet further in 2021.

The statistics speak for themselves. In the latest SRA survey, whilst below partner level in England & Wales, 59% of lawyers are reported as being female, they still represent only 34% of partners (and it is less than that at larger firms). BAME lawyers represent 21% of lawyers, however, the largest firms reported only 8% BAME partners. At the start of 2020, it was reported that only 11 of the 3000 UK partners across the Big Four were black.

Research crystallises analysis of more than 1,000 knowledge workers and 500,000 digital conversations to help forge path for the future of knowledge work  

iManage , the company dedicated to Making Knowledge Work™, today released research that finds just 23 percent of knowledge workers report their organisation is ahead of the curve in digital capabilities to support knowledge work. The implications of this finding are far-reaching, as knowledge workers are often the drivers of workplace innovation through the application of their ideas, skills, experience, knowledge, and judgement. With some estimates counting knowledge professionals at more than 1 billion worldwide, the iManage report demonstrates the need for many organisations to sharpen their strategies for enabling their professionals to connect with, activate, use, and retain critical knowledge across their businesses.

Javier Magaña, Technical Director at Lexsoft Systems , offers his views on the drivers of knowledge management (KM) in the professional services sectors in 2021.

The business imperative for collaboration will drive KM higher up the Board agenda 

With the overnight switch to a dispersed workforce, firms have come to starkly realise the business importance of collaboration, in the absence of office-based interactions. Additionally, in many firms, access to important documents, information and the collective ‘experience’ was restricted – be that due to poor VPN and connectivity issues, security and data protection protocols embedded in firms’ document and wider content management systems, which were configured for an office-based work environment, or a lack of a formal and structured approach to enterprise-wide KM.

What trends around knowledge management (KM) are in the cards for 2021? Alex Smith, Global Product Management Lead for iManage RAVN , looks ahead to the coming year.

Top 100 UK law firm Birketts is celebrating a senior appointment as it welcomes new Business Development and Marketing Director, Belinda Moore, to its expanding Client Services Team. 

Belinda was most recently on the executive team of E.ON, one of the UK’s biggest retail energy companies. She has spent more than a decade in Director roles across industries, consistently delivering revenue growth and improving client relations.

LexisNexis Legal & Professional, a leading global provider of information and analytics, today announced a new collaboration with Foundation Software Group, developer of the first firm intelligence platform for law firms. The relationship will initially focus on the integration of Foundation with LexisNexis® InterAction®, a leading client relationship management (CRM) solution purpose-built for legal and professional services, to empower the business development efforts of law and professional services firms. 

“Law firm marketing and business development departments need a holistic view of client relationships to support their wide range of work from strategic planning to pipeline management. This natural integration of InterAction and Foundation provides insight into work that has been done, lawyers who did it, and all the parties involved – giving firms a competitive advantage,” said Scott Wallingford, General Manager and Vice President of LexisNexis Legal Business Solutions.

Patrick is delighted to announce that The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong, is hosting his upcoming photo exhibition: “Track of Time – Moments of Transition, Beijing 1986” which will open on Thursday October 1^st and runs until October 31^st. 

The nineteen images comprising “Track of Time” have never been seen publicly before and have languished in his sock drawer, tightly rolled in the original tissue paper from the Wangfujing dark room from which they first emerged back in 1986. These black and white pictures sublimely capture daily life and were captured during a forty kilometre round trip daily commute by bicycle through Beijing’s Ming Dynasty Hutongs.  

Top 100 law firm Birketts is delighted to announce the appointment of Jake Foxford as a PR and Communications Executive in its highly regarded PR and Communications Team. 

Jake has a strong background in journalism, communications and media and has significant experience in social media marketing, digital marketing, advertising and copywriting. Prior to joining Birketts, Jake worked as a Digital Reporter for a regional news outlet and as a Marketing Executive for a local authority organisation. During this time he worked with clients across the public and private sector, working closely with family businesses and SMEs across the region.

Tikit, an Advanced company, and leading provider of technology solutions for law and professional services firms, today announces the integration of Introhive and its Cloud-based Tikit Connect CRM system. This creates a comprehensive, connected environment to facilitate contact management, communications and relationship nurturing – at a price point that is attractive to both mid-market legal and professional services firms.  

“In an increasingly competitive business environment, and with the commodification of legal services, the firms that succeed will be those who have processes in place to ensure the strongest possible connection to their clients and prospective clients. This is as much a challenge for mid-sized law firms as it is for large firms, but traditionally it has been difficult to justify the investment required,” states Doug Hargrove, Managing Director – Legal - Advanced.

Following last months’ very successful PSMG webinar “Challenges on implementing a client programme within the firm” led by Simon Elven of Tikit and Mario Dolcezza of Viu, after talking to the presenters we are delighted to announce that we have secured a really beneficial offer especially for you, our PSMG members and subscribers. 

Tikit and viu are very kindly offering you the opportunity to try out the viu platform free of charge and without obligation for three-months!

Global elite law firm Skadden's European marketing team (lead by Jeremy Ford) has recently recruited both Rita Baptista Martins (ex-Deputy Editor for Latin America, Chambers & Partners ) to focus on directories and recognition projects and Sarah Boss (ex-Senior Events Executive, Baker & McKenzie) who will take the lead on client and key internal events.

Join Tikit and Introhive at 11am on the 9th June, for a demonstration of how you can ease your data entry, simplify data quality, enrich data automatically and proactively present relevant data at the most relevant time.

This service is being offered free of charge following their very successful webinar for PSMG "Relationship refresh: business development in times of big data" on 19th May.

A recording of the 19th May seminar is also available.

"Read more" for how to obtain a copy and how to book a place for 9th June.

Now’s the time to get to know your clients (before somebody else does).

As the glimmerings of a possible emergence from the Coronavirus lockdown appear on the distant horizon we can be sure that business is already planning a sprint from the click of the starting gun. A flurry of marketing and sales activity is certain as is the scramble to find and win those rare client opportunities.

Heightened competition inevitably puts a squeeze on margins, but the hope is that winning a new client will eventually lead to other, better returns in the long run – but why would it? Unless you’re able to develop a meaningful, trusted relationship with that hard-won client what is to stop them being the conquest business for your competitors, just as they were for you?

Mario Dolcezza is the CEO of viu, a tech firm (and Tikit’s newest partner), whose platform is dedicated to client engagement. He will be presenting a webinar for the PSMG on the 28th May at 12 noon, with Tikit’s Marketing and Commercial Director Simon Elven where they will discuss the challenges to implementing a client experience programme.  

The Covid-19 pandemic is testing UK professional services firms like never before. Partners, clients and colleagues are looking to marketing and communications leaders to guide their organisations’ communications confidently and effectively through these coming weeks and months.

But we have not lived through anything like this before. So, without the real-world experience, how should marketing and communications leaders plan their response?

Read more and find out to obtain a copy of the free Report.

Client Talk is looking to find out what the impact of Covid-19 has been on marketing activity.  They have devised a short survey (https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/MLCT6JB ) that should take no more than a couple of minutes to complete. 

They will be sharing their results exclusively with PSMG.   

Initial findings will first be shared in their workshop for PSMG on 12 May  where they will be talking about the formula they have devised to drive growth in professional services firms.

All webinar delegates will receive a complimentary hard copy of the Report!

Tikit, a global provider of technology to legal firms announces a new partnership with client engagement platform provider, viu, to offer improved client relations to law and accountancy firms.

Now more than ever, a firm’s relationship with its clients’ needs to be strengthened and developed. One of the most effective ways to do this is to ask the client about their experience and, if there were negative aspects to it, deal with it in a way that enhances the relationship. viu targets this issue precisely and automatically. 

Simon Moffat  has joined RPC as Head of Business Development. He previously spent 8.5 years at Charles Russell and then Charles Russell Speechlys, the latter as Head of BD after the merger in 2014.  

Grist is conducting a short survey to understand how marketing and communications leaders in the UK’s leading professional services firms (£20m plus) are dealing with the impact of the Coronavirus (Covid-19).

Please see announcement released by Chambers and Partners and Legal 500 with regard to Directory Submissions and we hope this is helpful for the PSMG Community.

The disruption caused by the Coronavirus outbreak is having a significant impact on businesses and employees alike. 

In addition to their regular bulletins and guidance, the Collyer Bristow Employment Team is now offering clients of the firm an Employment Advice Helpline. This provides clients with instant access to their team of four specialist employment lawyers and up to thirty minutes free legal advice .

Claire Wood has recently joined Coffin Mew as Head of Business Development. Claire, who will provide strategic, commercial guidance on business planning, client relationship development and winning new business, has 20 years experience within the legal sector. Prior to joining Coffin Mew she was Business Development Manager for Penningtons Manches Coopers’ Corporate, Commercial & IP and Technology sector teams.

London-based accountancy firm Jeffreys Henry LLP have promoted Bhimal Hira to Business Development Partner, effective 6 January 2020.

Since joining the firm in 2008, the 35 year old has supported the wider Partnership through a period of unprecedented double-digit growth by expanding their sector and service specialisms, implementing key technological advances and helped deliver a first class client experience – all of which helped win Mid-Tier firm of the Year 2016/17 and Specialist Team of the Year 2018.

More recently, Bhimal has supported the firm’s international expansion through Morison KSi which gained access to over 152 carefully selected independent member firms in 81 countries.

Man Bites Dog, the strategic ideas company, is celebrating an impressive nine international marketing award wins in 2019. The awards recognise The Global Talent Crunch campaign created by Man Bites Dog for long-standing client partners, Korn Ferry. The international thought leadership campaign challenged the misperception that technology and machine learning will make people less important in the future of work by proving that the opposite is true: AI will generate new skilled jobs, making the right kind of talent more important in the future of work.  

Awards highlights include Best Thought Leadership Campaign in the B2B Marketing Awards, Best International Campaign in the CIPR Awards, Best Global Programme in the Sabre EMEA Awards and Best International Campaign in the CorpComms Awards. The campaign also won World’s Best B2B Campaign in the ICCO Global Awards 2018, taking the trophy count to ten.  

CorpComms judges commended the campaign for achieving “such impressive results” and praised the “breadth and depth of impact” of the campaign and its “real commercial benefits”.

Collaboration continues to be a source of frustration for marketing professionals, while a new study shows marked improvement as digital initiatives increase

Law firms pursuing too many new business opportunities is adversely impacting their business development efforts, according to a study released today by LexisNexis InterAction . This lack of focus and poor prospect targeting was among the top obstacles for business development success, along with a lack of follow-up and heavy competition. 

Hogan Lovells has named London-based Stephen Allen as Head of Innovation & Digital. He will be responsible for devising and implementing the firm’s innovation solutions relating to data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, legal technology and digital productisation.

The client meeting rooms in Walker Morris new office are brought to life with the installation of 13 winning original works of art.

As part of Walker Morris' continued and long-standing investment in the arts, the leading law firm launched an innovative competition, in partnership with Leeds Arts University, to commission 13 pieces of original artwork for its new office on Wellington Street.

Students from across the Leeds Arts University's disciplines were challenged to design a piece of art with a ‘distinctive' theme to reflect the Firm’s reputation as a distinctive commercial law firm. The artwork completely fills one of the walls in each of the client meeting rooms in the Firm's new building at 33 Wellington Street, Leeds which it moved into this summer. 

Professional Services Marketing technology firms like Concep work hard to achieve high levels of deliverability, yet blacklisting is always a risk.  Concep explain what blacklisting is, why it happens and outline what we do to prevent it from affecting our clients. This is an excellent read around a very topical and serious issue.

B P Collins, the Gerrards Cross and London law firm, has announced three new senior appointments. John Hargrave is its new chief operating officer; and will be working with the firm on a part time basis. Gina Connell becomes chief marketing officer and Adrian Moorhouse will move from being B P Collins’ non-executive director to non-executive chairman. All three roles will support senior partner Simon Deans, in driving the firm’s growth.  This follows the appointment of Steve Perry as business development manager earlier this year. 

John Hargrave joins with extensive experience in the European IT industry and is the former head of finance and operations at a regional law firm. As chief operating officer, part of his role will focus on furthering B P Collins’ operational efficiency following extensive investment in its technological infrastructure. He will also oversee the firm’s headquarters move to new premises in Gerrards Cross in 2020.

James Stringer has joined Deloitte Legal UK as BD Director. He was previously Global Head of BD for International Capital Markets at Allen & Overy (where he worked with Deloitte Legal UK’s Managing Partner Michael Castle) and was subsequently BD Director at Fladgate.

For the fifth year running, Concep has published its annual benchmarking report comparing email marketing performance in five professional services sectors.

The report compares email campaign metrics for Consulting, Legal, Financial Services - including Accounting, Real Estate and a group of other Professional Services such as Healthcare and Recruitment. The report reveals averages, by region and by sector for: deliverability, open rates, click to open and opt out rates. The findings are compared with last year’s metrics highlighting which sectors have improved the most.

Last night at the PPA awards, Sunday won Content Agency of the Year!

PSMG is delighted to share our members news!

Lisa Mclauchlan, Group BD Director at Estera, a leading global fiduciary provider, has won the gold award for the BD and Marketing Director of the Year category in Citywealth’s Brand Reputation and Management Awards. In addition, the Estera marketing team won silver in the Overall Marketing Campaign of the Year category.  These awards recognise Lisa and the BD and marketing team’s outstanding achievements in developing Estera’s brand and contributing to the firm’s ongoing revenue growth.

At a breakfast briefing hosted by Nick Nadell, Partner and Head of Israel Desk in the Glasgow office of Burness Paull, Hugo will analyse the key factors responsible for driving growth in the Israeli high-tech industry and how this  has enabled Israel to become the global hub for innovation. He will also give his outlook on what’s coming next, followed by an open discussion on how Scottish businesses can benefit from Israeli innovation to gain a competitive edge.

Nishlis Legal Marketing

We are absolutely thrilled to bring you the first ever Israel Desks League Tables, showcasing those law firms that are not only involved in Israeli deals and with Israeli clients, but also with a deep understanding of market trends, of their clients’ opportunities, and the challenges to overcome.

After an extensive period of meetings, data collection and analysis, we would like to thank more than a third of all Israel Desks around the world for submitting a range of deals in M&A, high-tech, VC and private equity, real estate, and more - all helping to showcase their immense expertise to a hungry Israeli audience with a healthy appetite for international deals.

PSMG sponsor Comnexa are delighted to announce that Director Dan Williams has been named as a finalist for Young Director of the Year at the Institute of Directors Jersey 

The Jersey branch of the Institute of Directors (IoD) has announced a 23-strong shortlist of individuals for the tenth annual search to find the top leaders across Jersey’s private, public and voluntary sectors.

We send our congratulations to Dan and look forward to seeing him being named as the winner.  Good luck Dan!

PSMG member Alex Smith, Innovation Manager, Reed Smith LLP is leaving the firm to join RAVN, the artificial intelligence services provider. 

Alex told Cristiano Dalla Bona of The Lawyer, that part of his new role, created specifically for him, will be to oversee product management and client roadmap of the platform from implementation to delivery. 

PSMG community, Rebecca Wright, Senior Business Development Manager at White & Case is to join her former colleague, Jeremy Ford, Client Development Director of Ropes & Gray as they attempt to ride 300kms around London in 24 hours for the cycling charity Qhubeka.  Rebecca will be part of a 20 strong team raising much needed funds.

There is growing evidence of buyers changing their habits to acquire ‘legal’ services from new sources. This is good news for the Big Four and swarm of alternative legal service providers, and a potential problem for all but a handful of premier law firms.

In May 2019, Jeremy Ford, Client Development Director of Ropes & Gray, will be attempting to ride 300kms around London in 24hrs for the incredible Qhubeka cycling charity as part of a team of 20 fundraisers. Qhubeka raises money to bring bicycles that will last many years to vulnerable and in-need women and children across some of the most impoverished areas in South Africa, and the wider African continent.

Please support Jeremy in his efforts for this worthwhile charity!

LexisNexis® InterAction®, a leading client relationship management (CRM) solution purpose-built for legal and professional services, today launched InterAction® for Office 365®, an advanced, high-performing application that embeds CRM data into existing workflows across Microsoft® Outlook, Excel and Word.

Paul Smith, Partner and recent Chairman of Eversheds Sutherland and Sally Dyson, Founder of Firm Sense will be launching their new book in late 2019 “The Real Deal: Law Firm Leadership That Works”. 

Paul’s experiences as immediate past Chairman of Eversheds Sutherland form the backbone of this book into which Sally weaves accounts from pioneering law firm chiefs who have transformed the fortunes of their firms.  

Marketing technology firm Concep has just completed a successful MBO. The senior team, led by investors Beaumont Capital, has bought the company from its external shareholders, including former founders, for an undisclosed sum. 

With offices in London , New York , Sydney and Sofia , Concep currently provides around 300 clients in the legal and professional services industry with digital marketing solutions. More than 50% of Concep's clients are law firms, including a significant number of the global top 250.

Lex Mundi’s board of directors has appointed Helena Samaha as its next President, succeeding Carl Anduri, who has led the organization for the last 19 years.

Ms. Samaha commented, “I am excited and privileged to be the next president of Lex Mundi. I appreciate the confidence the Board of Directors has placed in me. I look forward to working with our member firms around the globe to continue to build upon Lex Mundi’s tremendous global client service platform.”

6point6, the leading technology consultancy specialising in digital, emerging technology and cyber, has revealed a new brand identity, reflecting its ongoing investment in the firm and clients.

The full rebrand, including website and social media redesign, highlights the company’s exceptional growth and establishes its position in the market. In the last seven years, 6point6 has grown to over 130 personnel, and is a trusted partner to HM Government and leading financial services and media companies, including Experian, the BBC and the Telegraph Media Group.

As the Spiranti Academy prepares to launch thier exciting new St John’s Innovation Leadership Programme, they wanted to invite you to come and sample the energy and excitement that will characterise the programme ….. so please join them at their Launch Celebration Evening on 27th February.  

The evening will start with drinks and meeting the team, before providing a hands-on demonstration of the experience the programme will deliver to participants. They will also share the experiences of the amazing brains in the room (that will include you!) to discuss the experiences all organisations face when trying to innovate with pace.

When we met Gail and the PSMG team we knew that our business ethos and strategy aligned with the organisations. As Gail advocates change is ever-present, ever-demanding and ever-challenging to an extent possibly unseen for a generation or more.

Change will be our theme at the conference and we will share with you how we have developed a methodology that will help to make the business case for digital change for your organisation. 

John Birrell has recently joined CMS as a Client Manager for TMT and Energy sector strategic clients.

John was previously a Client Relationship Manager at BCLP where career highlights include being wrongly identified as a tax associate on Roll on Friday, and being crowned ‘Most Affable Man’ at the annual Marketing away day.”

Gail Jaffa (PSMG) and Ben Kent (Meridian West) are delighted to announce their new joint venture Spiranti.

Spiranti is an exclusive leaders circle of partners, clients, innovators, technologists, business developers, university professors, disruptors and experts from outside the professional services sector. 

We will share practical insights and ideas on how to innovate and will discuss issues honestly and openly in a safe and exciting environment to discover new ways of shaping the way we all do business.  It is a genuine community that shares knowledge, challenges perceptions and creates ideas.

We are delighted to be partnering with St. John’s Innovation Centre at Cambridge

We are delighted to announce that our mainline sponsors for the 2019 PSMG Annual Conference is Fullscope an  Alithya company in the UK  a world leader in strategy and digital technology. Huge thanks go to everyone at Alithya for their tremendous support. Why not join them at their dedicated conference workshop?   

Beverly Landais has received full accreditation as a Strengths Profile Practitioner having successfully completed her training. 

Beverly says "I have been using Strengths Profile for some time and decided to take my expertise to another level with full accreditation. I am really glad to have done it. I am using it with individuals as well as teams to support personal development and professional growth. This adds to my other accreditations to use Hogan Assessments and PROPHET Senior Leadership Team Profiling".

Man Bites Dog, the strategic ideas company, has expanded its professional services thought leadership team with a number of key senior appointments. 

Alex Lambeth, former COO of Invest Africa, has joined as a senior consultant to expand the company’s vibrant international trade practice. With a decade’s experience in international trade relations, Alex brings a wealth of expertise in high-growth markets and public affairs. Alex has worked at the highest level with governments in the UK, Europe and internationally and has a sound knowledge of the global business community. 

Baker McKenzie has announced the appointment of James Wilson as the firm's first chief client development Officer. He will oversee all business, development, marketing and communications (BDMC) operations for Baker McKenzie, defining strategies and approaches to support the firm's overall vision.

FT Innovative Lawyers Awards Europe

Sussex and Kent-based legal and consultancy firm, asb law LLP, won an award for innovation last week at the FT Innovative Lawyers Awards Europe 2018.  Managing Partner, Andrew Clinton and Head of Corporate Relationships, Lyndsey Ratcliffe, attended the event at the Natural History Museum in London. They were delighted to receive the award for Innovation in the business of law: New business and service delivery models .

Keep your eyes peeled We will shortly be sending you the latest issue of the PSMG magazine. We’ve had a facelift - and quite a major one at that!

Now called Centrum   our Magazine is produced on a fully interactive new digital publishing platform. The days of cumbersome, unresponsive static online versions or printed magazines – often incompatible across the various platforms – are gone!

A busy birthday!

Enable has had a busy 5th birthday year.  PitchPerfect, their pitch automation tool, is in great demand and in the last few months Linklaters and another Top 75 UK law firm have joined their rapidly growing client list, which includes UK, European, and US professional services firms. PitchPerfect is popular with professional services firms because it makes creating pitches and credential documents a lot more efficient.  Using Word & PowerPoint branded templates and content saved in one central repository users can create quality documents in minutes, rather than hours.

Together Wilson and Stanton Allen form leading services partner to professional services firms around customer relationship management and business development applications

Wilson Legal Solutions and Stanton Allen Ltd. have merged operations into a united company, having finalized the terms of an agreement announced in May of this year.

U.S.-based Wilson Legal Solutions is a leading provider of software and services that help professional services organizations improve business performance.

U.K.-based Stanton Allen is a leading customer relationship management (CRM) and business development consultancy that provides related software and services to professional services firms. The consolidation brings together two experts in the professional services sector, resulting in an organization that is perfectly suited to help the industry meet its evolving needs regarding business development.

Wallis Ranatunga recently joined Ropes & Gray in London as the Senior Client Development Manager for the Private Equity & Private Investment Funds industry groups.

Alastair Beddow, Managing Director of Meridian West is delighted to announce additions to their team.

Joining the Meridian West team this June are Helen Trudgeon and Emily Miller.

Meridian West announces the promotion of Alastair Beddow to Managing Director, effective today. He will take over the leadership of the firm from Ben Kent, who founded Meridian West in 2001. Ben will remain a Director and closely involved in the delivery of Meridian West client projects.

How does your B2B Email Marketing performance stack up?

Concep – providers of B2B digital marketing solutions to professional services firm have compiled a benchmarking report to help you compare the performance of your email campaigns against 6 sectors.

Grahame Jones, Managing Director of Soukias Jones says after 20 years of working for law, accountancy and consultancy firms, they deserve a medal but instead decided to mark the occasion by refreshing their website.

They have also developed a fun online quiz on professional services’ branding! Yes, professional services’ branding can be fun!

DHD will be working across EMAPs complete portfolio of brands, producing marketing collateral for all events, subscriptions, recruitment and marketing solutions.  

Right Hat values the international experience and knowledge brought by Leigh Dance of legal buyers for their communications projects with law firms and other providers. Leigh's work with corporate legal and compliance teams often requires good design and execution, to help in-house counsel communicate strategy and performance. Enter Right Hat.

PSMG is pleased to announce a new series of breakfast meetings that has been developed specifically for Marketing & BD Managers who are working towards senior leadership positions in the future. 

This new initiative is not only intended to be educational and informative but will provide delegates with the opportunity to develop their personal brand, a network of peers and will offer unique interaction with senior Marketing & BD leaders across the Professional Services sector. It will also provide greater insight for the road ahead and the challenges faced when progressing from manager to leader. 

Kogan Page is delighted to announce that Strategic Tendering for Professional Services: Win More, Lose Less , by leading professional services experts Matthew Fuller and Tim Nightingale, has won Business Book of the Year in the Selling the Dream category at the inaugural Business Book Awards .

The Business Book Awards celebrates the work of authors who have shared their industry or market knowledge, experience and expertise in published book form. The event aims to highlight the quality and variety of business books in the market and offers industry-wide recognition to new and established authors writing on a multiplicity of subjects for a diverse readership.

We are delighted to announce that Eric Murangwa Eugene, the founder and Executive Managing Officer of Football for Hope Peace and Unity (FHPU Enterprise), PSMG's chosen Charity, and Survivors Tribune, has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list for his services to the Awareness and Education of Genocide against the Tutsi of Rwanda.

"This award is not just for me, it is also for all the survivors who continue to fight for justice, challenge denial and keep the memories of our loved ones alive".

We are absolutely delighted for Eric and his family.  Much deserved!

Price Bailey is delighted to be recognised by The Sunday Times as one of the UK’s ‘Top 100 Companies to Work For’ in their 2018 survey. 

Listed at number 77 within The Sunday Times 18^th annual ‘Top 100 Companies to Work For’ in the mid-size category, East Anglian based chartered accountants and business advisers also received the Best Companies™ 2 Star accreditation, recognising outstanding employee engagement.

Price Bailey chartered accountants and business advisers have appointed Marc Potter as a Senior Manager in their Insolvency and Recovery team.

Marc joins Price Bailey with experience working for a top 10 UK accountancy firm, having accumulated nearly 30 years’ working within Insolvency overall. His breadth of experience covers all aspects of corporate and personal insolvency across various industries including Construction and Healthcare, amongst others.

Helena Wilkinson from Price Bailey in Cambridge joins the panel at the Westminster Legal Policy Forum to discuss ‘The future for charity law and governance’ 

Helena Wilkinson, Partner and Head of Not for Profit at Price Bailey, the Cambridge based chartered accountants and business advisers will join a panel of Charity industry experts to discuss the latest viewpoints on accountability and reporting, the role of Trustees and the implications of the new Charity Governance Code.

IBB Solicitors is merging with an Uxbridge business in order to cement its position in the Buckinghamshire legal market. 

The merger between Iliffes Booth Bennett (IBB) Solicitors and Turbervilles Solicitors will complete on 1 January 2018.

Eversheds Sutherland International names first-ever female chair 

Eversheds Sutherland International has appointed its first ever female global chair, after partners voted for financial services head Pamela Thompson to replace Paul Smith next year.

Nisus Consulting’s Rob Jackson to join Allen & Overy

After two years at Nisus Consulting, Rob Jackson has joined the Client Listening team at Allen & Overy. Having previously led many independent research projects on behalf of Nisus’ clients, the team wishes Rob the best of luck in his new role at A&O

We are delighted to announce that Isha Chander, Sector Manager Financial Services at Addleshaw Goddard LLP was listed in the Women in FinTech Power List 2017.  The list is launched by Innovate Finance, the leading trade body for FinTech. This is a huge achievement for Isha to be recognised in this way and should be warmly congratulated!

We are delighted to announce and welcome back many of our long term supporters as Exhibitors at this year’s annual conference on 22^nd November.

Why not join us to find out from the leaders in their field the insights they can provide to help us in our quest to stay ahead position ourselves as agents of change with our firms.

We would like to thank Concep, Enable and Passle for their tremendous support in being our three exclusive sponsors at this year’s annual conference on 22^nd November.   We are delighted to be working with them, once again, and are proud to be associated with them.   You will also be able to meet with them in the Exhibition Hall where you can access their wealth of experience and knowledge as they help us to understand the changing world in which we are now moving.

UK based recruitment firm Blue Legal has launched its first overseas office in New York. Blue Legal said the US operation is an extension of its European and Asia presence to support its longstanding service to global clients. 

asb law announces strategic alliance with Elevate to deliver world-class legal consultancy, technology and services to clients.                                      

asb law, a law and consultancy firm leading innovation in legal services, today announced a strategic alliance with the law company, Elevate.  

“Providing high quality legal advice is no longer enough to satisfy the discerning needs of buyers of legal services”, said Andrew Clinton, Managing Partner of asb law. “Our research clearly showed there was a need from progressive in-house legal departments for market insight and consulting capabilities to help those departments design and deliver more effective ways of operating.

The State of Mobile in the top 300 Law Firms

Hannah Lissaman at Meridian West shares her views on Colin Jasper’s pragmatic and positive view of the opportunities afforded by value-based pricing

We are delighted to announce that Addleshaw Goddard, who are presenting a workshop at the PSMG Annual Conference on 22nd November, have been ranked as 'standout' and came second in the 'Supporting Start-ups' category for AG Elevate, their FinTech programme, at the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards 2017.

Digital and social selling is the theme for the first event of the Professional Services Marketing Group (PSMG), Jersey.

Featuring case studies from HSBC and Visit Jersey, as well as a presentation by UK-based experts, Digital Leadership Associates, it will explore current trends and best practice in digital marketing and social selling.

"Delivering Digital: How to survive and thrive in the Information Age"  is being held at the Freedom Centre, Bath Street on Wednesday October 11^th from 4pm to 7pm.

A new PSMG marketing group has launched in Jersey focusing on the professional services industry. 

The ‘Professional Services Marketing Group (PSMG), Jersey’ has been formed by a number of the island’s senior marketers to exchange ideas, share best practice, collaborate on projects and advance the reputation of the profession locally. 

It is an affiliate group of the PSMG in London, an independent and forward-thinking partnership set-up almost 30 years ago to focus on educating, training and empowering all those in marketing and business development. 

PSMG Jersey will host a number of events throughout the year, beginning with a launch event on Wednesday October 11^th. Featuring case studies from HSBC and Visit Jersey, as well as a presentation by Digital Leadership Associates, it will explore current trends and best practice in digital marketing and social selling. 

PSMG Jersey co-founder Martyn White, Head of Corporate Marketing and Business Development at Carey Olsen, said the idea for the group had been embraced by Jersey’s senior marketers from businesses such as Carey Olsen, Equiom, Jersey Finance, Sanne, JTC, Aztec, HSBC and many others.

Rainmakers UK are partnering with Glad’s House to host a charity 5-a-side football tournament at Powerleague Shoreditch. Come and showcase your footballing skills and confirm your organisation's position as best the 5-aside team in the capital!

The London offices of numerous leading law firms have hired marketing professionals caught up in the failure of King & Wood Mallesons’ (KWM) European operations, which went into administration on 17 January this year. 

Research undertaken by the PSMG Magazine reveals that rival law firms hiring former KWM marketers in recent months include Addleshaw Goddard, Baker McKenzie, DWF, Eversheds Sutherland, Linklaters, Herbert Smith Freehills, Slaughter and May and Taylor Wessing – to name but a few.

Team Somaliland, a team lead by Duncan Lewis solicitor Ahmed Aydeed, triumphed in the Play 2 Remember 5-a-side football tournament, held earlier this month in London. 

The annual Play 2 Remember tournament is timed to coincide with the 100 days of remembrance for the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi, as well as the UN International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. Play 2 Remember is organised by Football for Hope, Peace and Unity (FPHU), the PSMG’s chosen charity for 2017. FPHU is overseen by the former goalkeeper of the Rwanda national football team, Eric Eugene Murangwa.

Cross-selling to existing clients is the most important goal of law firm business developers and marketers in 2017, according to a new survey of US-based marketing professionals. The survey, Aligning marketing and business development resources for law firm growth , was undertaken by Bloomberg Law® and the Legal Marketing Association, the PSMG’s US affiliate.

Free copy available.

PSMG members Matthew Fuller and Tim Nightingale have published a new book, Strategic tendering for professional services: win more, lose less . The book is intended to offer end-to end best practice on the pitching process, covering everything from which requests for proposals to respond to, to the all-important face-to-face presentation, through to post-pitch follow up.

The book is published by Kogan Page, costs £29.99, and is available direct or via Amazon.

Gateley, the AIM legal services provider, has appointed Connect, a Midlands-based agency, to manage all of the firm’s marketing and communications work.

National law firm Weightmans has appointed communications agency Citypress to handle the firm’s PR. The appointments followed a competitive tender that saw the law firm consolidate its existing regional and national briefs under a single agency.

The head of the Office the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists (ORCL) has called on organisations involved in lobbying – including professional service firms – not to overdeclare their involvement in the process, where no direct communications with key government representatives has occurred.

Reed Smith is rolling out Enable’s PitchPerfect solution, which allows users to create pitch documents within Word or PowerPoint via pre-populated templates

Latest research finds that Marketing & Business Development (BD) Directors and CMOs at the world’s leading law firms are not confident that they can demonstrate a return on their firms’ investment in marketing and BD.

The 2017 Law Firm Marketing Operations Index, conducted by consulting firms Totum Partners and Calibrate Legal, surveyed marketing leaders, including Marketing and BD Directors and CMOs, at the largest law firms in the UK, United States and Canada.

Anyone who works within the business development function of a professional service firm will know that tendering is one of the highest-pressure activities that comes with the role. A new book by Matthew Fuller and Tim Nightingale may help make overseeing this process a little less fraught.

Michael Graham of Oxera Consulting LLP very kindly agreed to review this new book on behalf of PSMG.

PSMG members can obtain a discount on the purchase price of "Strategic tendering for professional services: win more, lose less". You won't be disappointed!

Beverly Landais is delighted to announce that she has been accepted to join the Trusted Coach directory  as a Founder Member.  

Finding a professional coach is difficult when anyone can call themselves a ‘coach’. There are many types of coach; Executive, Leadership, Confidence, Relationship, Life, Career, Performance, Business Coach etc. This makes it challenging to find someone who has the right skills, qualifications and can demonstrate tangible results in the area you would like to develop.

London Play2Remember is an annual 5-a-side football tournament with a social goal: promoting reconciliation and togetherness through sport.

Established in 2014 by Football for Hope, Peace and Unity (FHPU), PSMG’s chosen Charity, and in collaboration with several community outreach groups, London Play2Remember provides a chance for survivors of genocide and mass atrocities, as well as their supporters, to get together in a spirit of commemoration and hope.

London Play2Remember takes place on the first weekend of April to coincide with the international day of remembrance for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda on 7 April and the United Nations International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (IDSDP) on 6 April.

The event is open to men, women and mixed teams. 

Please join as a team or individual player (you will be allocated to a team) to play on the day, or as a spectator to watch the fun and support our cause. The event is not for profit, any proceeds will be used to cover running costs or will be donated to the organisers to fund our work with vulnerable survivor, migrant, and refugee groups.

The PSMG together with its education partner, Cambridge Marketing College, is launching a new marketing and BD skills programme – and we want to hear your views. With your input, we want to create the benchmark programme in our sector for marketing and BD specialists.

For a number of years, the PSMG and Cambridge Marketing College (CMC) have offered marketing and BD specialists the only Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) accredited qualification in professional services marketing. The Professional Services Pathway to the CIM Diploma in Professional Marketing is a unique offer, and has been successfully pursued through either evening class or distance learning study by many marketers in our sector.

International law firm Bryan Cave LLP has appointed Keith Hardie as director of marketing for Europe. In this newly created role, Hardie will develop and manage the firm’s marketing strategies across its European offices.

He joins the firm from Bird & Bird, where he was head of marketing and communications. Hardie was also previously a commercial director of Baseline, a joint venture between Bird & Bird and management consultants ASE Consulting.

Paul Middleton has joined KPMG as senior corporate communications manager, with a particular focus on Brexit-related communications.

Middleton previously worked for Ketchum, a global PR agency, where he specialised in media relations strategy and issues management.

Sarah Dyas has joined Berners Marketing as head of legal content. Dyas, a qualified lawyer, previously worked at the University of Law.

Emily Morris has joined Atkin Chambers a head of marketing. Morris, who previously ran her own consultancy business, sits on the chambers’ newly formed management team.

She has worked in the professional services and financial sector for more than 25 years.

Shelia O’Gorman has joined the PSMG’s London headquarters as office manager. O’Gorman has extensive experience in the professional service sector, and previously worked as a PR specialist.

PwC’s in-house team were commended for their work in transforming the firm’s digital communications. The recognition was given in the professional services website, app or campaign category at the recent Drum awards for the digital industries (DADI).

Lewis Silkin, the top 100 UK legal practice, has unveiled a revamped brand identity and website. The relaunch is the culmination of an 18-month process, which aimed to align the firm’s visual identity with that of its long-term business expansion strategy. Unusually for a law firm, the rebrand forms part of the practice’s expansion into non-legal services.

Global law firm Baker & McKenzie has undergone a visual identity refresh, dropping the ampersand from its name. The firm now trades as Baker McKenzie. The legal practice was assisted with the refresh by the New York-based branding agency, SS+K. SS+K is part of M&C Saatchi Worldwide.

Legal directory publishers Chambers & Partners has launched ChambersConnect, an invitation-only social media network for lawyers. The free-of-charge network is open to private lawyers who are ranked in the various Chambers legal directories, together with executives at major corporates who regularly instruct the legal profession.

Facebook is the most popular source of corporate thought leadership among FTSE 350 c-suite executives, according to a new study by Grist, the London-based business-to-business content marketing agency. Facebook was cited as the social network where senior executives were most likely to engage with business content (79 per cent), compared with Twitter (73 per cent) and LinkedIn (68 per cent).

Two of the UK’s largest professional service firms have expanded their client-facing marketing and communications services capabilities by way of acquisition. On 29 November 2016, Accenture announced it had acquired Karmarama, one of the UK’s largest independent creativity digital and data agencies. Then, on 13 December 2016, Deloitte confirmed its acquisition of Regester Larkin, a crisis, issues and reputation management consultancy.

Law firms are failing to provide major corporate clients with several key digital resources they want, while also overproviding resources clients are less keen to receive, according to a new report by Eversheds and Winmark.

One section of the wide-ranging study, Raising the bar: digital technology and the enhancement of legal services , compared the priorities of in-house counsel with those of legal service providers. More than half of the in-house counsel surveyed had an annual legal budget of £1 million or more, while more than half of the legal service providers surveyed had an annual turnover of more than £71 million.

Acuigen has been awarded the Business Innovation Award at the Bedfordshire Business Awards 2016.

The awards - launched this year by Bedfordshire on Sunday and sponsored by Barclays - recognise the hardworking local businesses and people achieving success in our community. From almost 200 entries, category judges whittled the entrants down to just one winner in each of our 14 categories.

In this category, judges were looking for a business that has introduced a new product, process, invention, idea, or design that has made a significant contribution to the business, its customers and/or the wider marketplace.

Reed Smith has promoted its Director of Marketing EMEA to its Chief Marketing Officer. London-based Sadie Baron took the new role in September.

Kent law firm Thomson Snell & Passmore has provided Charlotte Eberlein to Head of Marketing and Business Development. She joined the firm in 2013 from Hogan Lovells and leads a team of four.

Thomson Snell & Passmore is one of the UK’s oldest law firms, and will celebrate is 450^th anniversary in 2020.

Totum Partners has strengthened its marketing and business development team with the appointment of Lacey Palmer.

RSM, the audit, tax and consulting firm, has promoted its Chief Marketing Officer, James Grant, to the partnership.

The former British Army captain joined RSM in 2008, taking the CMO role in 2015, leading the firm through a global rebranding exercise that saw the entire RSM international network in 120 countries adopt the new RSM logo.

Gordon Brown, one of the leading consultants in the professional services client programmes and independent client conversations space, has set up a new business - ClientSavvy.

"Current organic growth in the professional service market is hiding a lot of systemic shortcomings in key client programmes," he told The PSMG Magazine . "The market is starting to edge towards new buyer/seller relationships as clients are changing the game again. It's going to get much much tougher and these shortcomings will impinge on where and how firms can grow in uncertain economic times."

The CIM Diploma is changing to better fit the specific needs of professionals in our sector, says Nigel Clark, Executive Director, PSMG

I am sure by the time you read this column the summer holidays will be in the dim and distant past, but there will be lots going on at the PSMG to brighten up your Autumn and Winter months. 

The only cloud on the PSMG horizon is that our longstanding editor Matt Baldwin has after eight years of holding my hand (and my predecessors before that) has reluctantly decided to step down to concentrate on his own thriving PR consultancy. 

I am sure you will all agree that Matt has, over the years, served us well in the marketing community by helping PSMG to deliver top notch contributors and content to the nagazine. Matt, I would like to publicly thank you for all the support, encouragement and sheer hard work you have given over the years. I could not have done it without you! You will be missed but you will not be forgotten. You will always be part of the PSMG community and I am sure our long standing relationship will surface again in the not too distant future.

PSMG and Meridian West would like to invite you to participate in a survey “What does Innovation Mean to Your Firm?” The findings from this latest piece of research from Meridian West will be released at the PSMG Annual Conference and a copy of the Report will be sent to everyone who takes part. 

Only the results will be published. Details of all participants will remain confidential!  

PSMG is thrilled to be working yet again with Concep one of only three exclusive sponsors at this year's Annual Conference. Concep are very generously providing a custom built interactive Conference App which all delegates will receive shortly included in the delegate fee. It has all the bells and whistles you can imagine and we hope you are as excited with it as we are!

PSMG is delighted to announce McLoughlin Ball Pty Ltd is one of only three exclusive sponsors at this year's Annual Conference and we very much look forward to working with them.

PSMG is delighted to announce, that following the departure of our long standing Magazine Editor, Matt Baldwin, it give me huge pleasure to announce that Richard Parnham, a legal journalist, copywriter and researcher has very kindly agreed to take over the role.

PSMG would like you to know that our longstanding Editor Matt Baldwin has after 8 years of holding my hand (and my predecessors before that) has reluctantly decided to step down as Editor of the PSMG Magazine to concentrate on his own thriving PR consultancy.

We are delighted that Microsoft are the headline sponsors of the PSMG 2016 Annual Conference where we will analyse the “business of innovation” within the complex and challenging marketplace in which clients, professional services firms and their marketers now operate.   

We’re pleased to report that having completed her PG Cert in Business and Personal Coaching earlier this year, Beverly Landais has also achieved the designation Associate Certified Coach (ACC). The honour was conferred on Beverly by the International Coach Federation (ICF). 

Alice will be responsible for managing the on-line presence at Saunderson House as well as supporting PR activities and the CSR programme.

Eversheds, Heba Ali, Lenovo, Intel and Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc. claim top honours at inaugural In-House Community Counsel of the Year Awards

HONG KONG, 27 May 2016 – In-House Community today announced the winners of its inaugural regional Counsel of the Year Awards, following an exclusive ceremony at Hong Kong Jockey Club last night. The awards bring together the cream of the legal industry in Asia and recognise achievement across a range of categories, including dedication, innovation, efficiency and value, integration, encouragement and improvement and corporate social responsibility and diversity.

Save the date - 16th November 2016

Venue: One America Square Conference Centre, 17 Crosswall, London EC3N 2LB

Saunderson House was represented at the recent Citywealth Powerwomen Awards by  Beverly Landais , Swaati Taylor   and  Charlotte Kennedy . Beverly Landais, who was an award winner, was interviewed following the event on the topic of the importance of business networks, coaching and talent management. Her interview may be viewed  here.

LONDON PLAY 2 REMEMBER - 5-A-SIDE FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT – SATURDAY 2^ND APRIL 2016

Play 2 Remember is a 5-a-side football tournament giving a chance for survivors of genocide and mass atrocities, as well as their supporters, to get together in a spirit of commemoration and hope.

PSMG and FPHU needs your help! Please join as a team or an individual to play on the day. What about pitching your skills against a team from another firm? How competitive are you? 

Or just come as a spectator to watch the fun!

Throughout 2016 PSMG is running in partnership with Meridian West and Kommercialize four full-day training workshops   designed to equip professional services marketers with the knowledge, skills and best practices needed to have greater impact in their role.

For the first time in history, Rwanda scored three medals at the African Continental Championships held in Morocco last week. Rwanda rode away with one gold and two silver medals.

Wragge Lawrence Graham has appointed Andrew Warren its new Business Development Director. Andrew joined the firm at the end of 2015 from DLA Piper, where he was its Head of Marketing Operations. 

Throughout his 18 years at DLA Piper, Andrew has been heavily involved in brand and general business development, client relationship management and several international mergers, helping to transform the law firm into one of the largest in the world today.

Meridian West and Questback hace launched Compass, a next generation client feedback platform designed specifically around the needs of professional services organisations. It meets the growing need for legal, accountancy and real estate firms to listen to clients and link their responses to business objectives.

Compass makes it simple to drill down to more detailed information, by service, sector, region or profitability of individual clients; and alerts managers to potential problems early, enabling remedial action to be taken. By providing real-time insights from clients and staff, it enables organisations to identify the practical steps that will protect revenue at risk, reduce write-off, and identify cross-selling opportunities.

Peterborough-based Buckles has been named ‘law firm of the year’ at the annual LawNet Awards.

White & Case’s Tom Lavin introduces the PSMG’s chosen charity for 2016 - Football for Hope, Peace and Unity in Rwanda.

My name is Eric Murangwa Eugene and I am the Founder and Managing Director of Football for Hope, Peace and Unity (FHPU), an organisation that uses sport, in particular football, to encourage young people and their communities to be active in the fight against prejudice and intolerance in Rwanda and beyond. I’m very pleased to announce that we have been chosen as the partnering charity of PSMG for 2016.

Are law firms doing enough to attract and retain the best business services talent? Totum share the highlights from their latest and most comprehensive salary survey yet. Now into its tenth year, their latest Business Services Salary Benchmarking Survey has been the most comprehensive yet, covering a wider breadth of firms than ever and detailing even more about the on-going development of business services functions in the legal profession. They are delighted to detail just a few of their findings.

Saunderson House are delighted to have received the award for Independent Financial Advice at the Gold Standard Awards 2015 , in a ceremony held at the House of Commons on the 26th November, hosted by Sir David Amess MP.  This is the second consecutive year the firm has been honoured by the award. Saunderson House was represented by Lawrence Mason , Tim Fuller , James Saddington and Beverly Landais , who attended the ceremony to receive the award.

PSMG is pleased to announce that workshop bookings will open on Monday 2nd November. For those who have already booked to attend our Conference please look out for our extremely interactive Conference App generously provided by Concep.  Full details will be available via the App for you to make your choice of workshops.

As we now have limited places available for the Conference please book your space today if you wish to join us and be assured of receiving your choice of workshops.

Our Conference is aimed at all professional services marketers and business development professionals not just the legal sector!

PSMG is delighted to announce Passle is one of only three exclusive sponsors at this year's Annual Conference and we very much look forward to working with them. Why not join us and Passle on 18th November and find out more at their workshop on “How to write a content marketing strategy that is deliverable and drives growth"

Totum, the leading law firm management recruitment agency, has announced today a number of significant developments that will enable it to better service the needs of its clients in the rapidly evolving legal recruitment market.

PSMG is delighted to announce that John Smith , latterly Vice President Continental Europe, Tyco Retail Solutions and Tony D'Onofrio , Vice President, Global Accounts, Tyco Retail Solutions have kindly agreed to run a workshop at the PSMG Annual Conference "Going for Growth? Set the path - don’t just follow it! in London on 18th November.

PSMG is delighted to be working yet again with Concep one of only three exclusive sponsors at this year's Annual Conference. Concep are very generously providing a custom built interactive Conference App which all delegates will receive shortly included in the delegate fee. It has all the bells and whistles you can imagine and we hope you are as excited with it as we are!

PSMG is delighted to announce Lexology is one of only three exclusive sponsors at this year's Annual Conference and we very much look forward to working with them.  Why not join us and Lexology on 18th November and find out more about the detailed analysis and tailored updates they deliver to business professionals worldwide on a daily basis.

This year's Conference to be held in the City of London on 18th November will analyse the strategies for growth within the complex marketplace in which clients, professional services firms and their marketers now operate.

Growth is back at the top of the agenda for every professional services firm. Whether you are a global firm looking to extend your international reach and build cross-border capability or a local practice seeking to keep pace with your clients’ ambitions, the pressure to develop new markets, services and client relationships is relentless.

We are delighted to announce a number of new and exciting initiatives for 2015/16. We would also be delighted to discuss how we can work together in providing exceptional education and training programmes for the personal and professional development of marketors in the professional services sector.

LinkedIn for Lawyers: Developing a Profile to Grow Your Practice

Your clients and prospects are on LinkedIn – are you? If you already have a LinkedIn profile, does it represent you well enough to attract your ideal clients? With over 380 million members in 200 countries around the world, LinkedIn is the largest online professional networking site in the world. "LinkedIn for Lawyers: Developing a Profile to Grow Your Practice" offers detailed, practical guidance at every stage.

Enhance your Professional  Career with a recognised Professional Marketing Qualification adapted to the Professional services sector. The PSMG Professional Services Marketing Pathway in association with the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM)  and The Cambridge Marketing College  is offered at three levels from Introductory to  Strategic level marketing. 

Leading East of England law firm, Birketts, has been named as a finalist in two categories at the inaugural Cambridgeshire Digital Awards, which recognise and reward innovation and progressive thinking across the county. The law firm’s marketing department has been shortlisted for its ‘Use of Social Media for Business’ and ‘Use of Video for Business’.

Growth is back at the top of the agenda for every professional services firm. Whether you are a global firm looking to extend your international reach and build cross-border capability or a local practice seeking to keep pace with your clients’ ambitions, the pressure to develop new markets, services and client relationships is relentless. Whatever size of firm you are your clients undoubtedly operate in a global marketplace. Aspirations and horizons cannot stop at the city, state or national boundary - nor should a firm’s growth strategy. .

The Professional Services Marketing Group (PSMG), Europe’s leading membership group for marketers in professional services, has today announced the appointment of Professor Malcolm McDonald, Emeritus Professor of Marketing at Cranfield Business School as Non-Executive Chairman and Academic Advisor to the Group.

Smart strategic moves, a differentiated proposition and affinity with female buyers drive success for the UK’s leading law firm brands.

PSMG is delighted to announce that Nigel Clark has joined the group as a Non-Executive Director. Nigel will work with Gail Jaffa, PSMG’s Managing Partner, in shaping the group’s education programme and developing new membership services.