Home comforts

I read with interest about the demise of another factory conveyancing department (see [2002] Gazette, 7 March, 4), which was tempered with the predictable upbeat comments about other successful 'high-volume ventures'.

Having qualified in 1991, I have practised in an increasingly overly competitive conveyancing market with many reinventions of the wheel being thought up by firms to market their services in this field.

Many of these schemes are proving unworkable.

Conveyancers and clients alike attach the greatest importance to the people they are dealing with in any transaction.

Buzzwords such as 'software' and 'teamwork' do not come into it if there is no chemistry and understanding between the buyers/sellers and their conveyancers.

The public are tearing their hair out over the inaccessibility and impersonal services from the high-street banks and public utilities, and at the risk of sounding old fashioned it is happening in our industry as well.

Of course there are exceptions and technology, through the Internet to e-conveyancing, is helping everyone to speed up the process, but the tools of any trade are only as good as the people who use them.

To set up your conveyancing factory you need substantial investment and this can be achieved by reminding your partners that your greatest expense (labour) will be cheaper because you will hire unqualified staff to carry out large chunks of the fee-earning.

But time is showing that this approach is not working.

Smaller practices have always known this but the specialist conveyancer is still losing clients.

And now traditional sources of recommendation such as estate agents themselves are being pushed into promoting the latest conveyancing invention at the expense of those with genuine conveyancing ability.

How many third parties want to recommend a firm or individual but are not allowed to by company policy thought up at head offices detached from the pithead of the conveyancing process?

The damage is being done.

The service suffers and redundant staff from the factory suffer.

Of course, market forces are at the heart of supply and demand and as service providers and clients alike we have only got what we collectively asked for.

It is hoped that the cyclical nature of economics will ensure that the personal traits that were once hallmarks of the conveyancing solicitor will return but as a profession we should take a more proactive approach to make sure that this happens sooner rather than later.

Ed Hardy, LHP Law Solicitors, Bath