DLA spearheads haul of management honours

FORUM: law firms bag all top awards over accountants

Law firms, led by national practice DLA, scooped all the honours at the first European practice management awards for lawyers and accountants which were held last week.

DLA was named the best managed firm, and also awarded the prize for best human resources initiative at the event organised by the Managing Partners Forum.

Other winners included Withers (mould-breaking firm), Addleshaw Booth & Co (best marketing campaign), Eversheds (best use of technology) and Milton Keynes-based Fennemores (best brand in practice).

US-based law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges was presented with an award for exceptional achievement for raising $115 million in three months for the New York police and fire widows' and children's benefit fund.

The forum is an association of more than 200 managing partners of law and accountancy firms based in the UK and Germany, and its awards focus on how human resources, marketing and technology can be used to improve firm management.

Robert Halton, human resources director at the double winner DLA, said the award was proof of how far the firm had come in the five years since it was created from the merger of Dibb Lupton Broomfield and Alsop Wilkinson.

'Five years ago, we had a high staff turnover and a bad public image, but since then we have restructured our rewards strategy to attract and retain the best staff, and our turnover is now halved.'

London firm Withers was named mould-breaking firm.

Its chairwoman Diana Parker put the firm's success down to treating private client matters with the same commercialism found in business transactions.

Victoria MacCallum