Andy Poole set out to discover whether the legal business standard Lexcel offers tangible benefits and came up with some encouraging findings


Achieving Lexcel accreditation seems to be regarded by some law firms as a lot of effort for little business benefit, but research I have carried out suggests this is far from the truth.



As chairman of LegalPlus and a full-time solicitor specialist working in a firm of chartered accountants, I was recently asked to present at the Law Society management section's annual finance forum - an approach I was extremely flattered to receive.



When asked what subject matter I would like to cover, I responded by suggesting that it would make sense for me to talk about mergers and law firm valuations. Unfortunately, that topic had already been taken.



I then suggested that I could talk about benchmarking law firms, since the LegalPlus benchmarking database covers approximately 150 firms. Again, that topic had been taken.



This pattern followed for a few minutes until I was asked whether I could wear my Lexcel consultant's 'hat' and talk about Lexcel. At the time, I admit, although I was extremely grateful for the invitation, I would have much preferred to take on almost any of the other topics being covered on the day. Now I am thankful I did not.



I certainly did not want to simply regurgitate the requirements of Lexcel to the delegates and show them how to achieve the practice management standard. I wanted to add a little more value than that. With only 8% of solicitors' practices having attained the Lexcel accreditation, I wanted to help the delegates to decide whether Lexcel would be beneficial for their practice.



I decided that I should carry out a survey of the 250 solicitor clients of the LegalPlus accountancy firms, as well as other solicitor contacts, to discover their views of Lexcel and its effectiveness.



Through an internal recommendation at the firm I work for, I was able to make use of free online software that automatically gathered and collated the survey results, eliminating most of the laborious elements of the research work.



The results of the survey, as presented at the finance forum, showed that 37% of the respondents had attained Lexcel. Far more people in the survey worked in firms that had Lexcel than the national average of 8%, a statistic that was hardly surprising given that people are more likely to respond to a survey about something they have rather than something that they do not have.



Of the remaining 63%, almost half said that they were not considering applying for Lexcel. In total, approximately one in three had ruled it out. The main reasons reported were that it was too time consuming and had no commercial benefit. The main purpose of my follow-up questions was, therefore, to discover whether Lexcel does have a commercial benefit.





Perception vs reality

I wanted to discover whether Lexcel had delivered the benefits that firms were expecting when they applied for it. I therefore asked the firms that had applied for Lexcel what had driven them to make that decision. The main reasons included: reduced complaints, increased client satisfaction, reduced negligence claims and lower indemnity insurance premiums as a result.



I followed up by asking what had been the actual benefits after obtaining Lexcel. The results showed that 68% of respondents felt that complaints had reduced, 59% had increased client satisfaction and 45% had lower indemnity insurance premiums.



I have been asked on many occasions whether having Lexcel automatically reduces a firm's indemnity insurance premium and my answer has always been the same: not necessarily, but the processes that are behind the badge, the increased ?level of client care and the reduced risk of negligence claims should all help. But I am now seeing more evidence that insurers are recognising the benefits that Lexcel brings and may offer automatic reductions to your premium.



None of the respondents indicated that they regretted the decision to apply for Lexcel; all reported that it was worthwhile. It was also interesting to note that, although most participants indicated that Lexcel was best suited to law firms with between six and 25 partners, high percentages of adoption were also reported for all other sizes of firm, including sole practitioners.



My questions also covered the perceived effectiveness of the Law Society's approach to Lexcel and whether it could do anything else to promote the standard to practices, commercial clients and the general public. The responses indicated that although more could be done, mass marketing may not pass a cost/benefit test for the Society, and it may be more appropriate for individual firms with Lexcel to explain the benefits to their clients and potential clients as part of their individual marketing strategy.



I hope that the research I have carried out will help firms in their decision-making process. I have certainly welcomed the opportunity to interact in this way with so many firms of solicitors and I look forward to continuing to do so. I have not attempted to sway people one way or the other, but the results do suggest that Lexcel can bring ?commercial benefits for most law firms and perhaps deserves your further consideration.



Andy Poole is solicitor services manager at Hawsons Chartered Accountants and UK chairman of LegalPlus. For the full survey results, email him at aap@hawsons.co.uk