Teamwork and partnership
We recognise that our instructing solicitors want us to work with them as allies rather than arms-length advisors or external advocates: in a 2014 client survey, 94% of respondents rated our success in creating a sense of partnership with them as important or extremely important.
We have therefore set out to join forces and work in concert with instructing solicitors, both to support them in their own practice and for the benefit of the lay-client, many of whom are facing the crisis of their lives and deserve all the support we can possibly provide.
To this end we have also introduced numerous practical initiatives over the last two years, encompassing resource, structure, process, culture, training, premises, facilities and IT. We believe these – with other measures tailored to the requirements of particular clients – are all instrumental in creating a strikingly effective working relationship with our instructing solicitors and other clients.
Most importantly however, this approach represents a commitment on the part of our barristers and staff alike to working in partnership with our solicitors on every aspect and at every stage of a case, to tailor and perfect the service we together provide to the lay client.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR clients
Our instructing solicitors tell us this approach has generated a new sense of teamwork: in a 2016 survey of clients, 95% gave us top scores for our success in creating a sense of partnership with them. This represents a 17% increase on our scores for the same question in a 2014 survey. It is an approach which builds better relationships and ultimately brings better results.
A partner from a national law firm comments “the ethos of Serjeants’ Inn is very much to anticipate clients’ needs and go above and beyond what is asked for. The idea of working in ‘partnership’ is one which is very much felt in practice”.