Addleshaws spreads wings with consultancy launch
Firm moves into strategic management advice as it bets on a consolidating market
Mark Jones
Addleshaw Goddard is positioning itself to help law firm rivals restructure their businesses with the launch of a management consultancy led by chairman Mark Jones.
The initiative is aimed at capitalising on an expected wave of consolidation in the professional practices market. The firm will market the consultancy
to professional practices, including law firms, that are considering mergers, equity restructurings or new strategic directions.
Jones said: “This is about far more than just law firms. We’re looking to advise clients from the whole breadth of professional practices, including quantity surveyors, accountants and patent and trademark attorneys. The potential is huge.”
Along with Jones the consultancy will feature members of the firm’s professional practices and LLP group, which is headed by Richard Linsell,
and the team behind its client development centre, led by Jim Hever.
The firm claims this combination of expertise will make the consultancy “unique in the UK market”.
The consultancy is effectively a new practice group within Addleshaws rather than a standalone business, with the focus on strategic rather than
legal advice. Consequently clients will be charged fees at consultancy rates.
“That could be hourly rates or a retainer if clients want it,” said Jones.
That said, Jones admitted that the new offering was also “a gateway to Addleshaws”, because clients would be offered services from the law firm as and when needed.
Hever added that this was likely to be one of the keys to the success of the initiative.
“The most important thing is to stay with the client throughout the implementation of any new strategy,” Hever said.
In the legal market, Jones said the consultancy’s target clients would be law firms below the top 20 that required advice on partner performance, profit-sharing systems and mergers.
Readers' comments (8)
Anonymous | 3-Aug-2009 2:50 pm
Unique all right!! How will they operate - Chinese walls? Can they really advise their direct competitors? And why would other partnerships come to Addleshaws for advice?
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Anonymous | 3-Aug-2009 2:50 pm
Let me get this straight: the man who has just led AG to an 11% drop in revenue and a 31% drop in PEP is going to advise other firms on how to manage their businesses? You must be having a laugh!
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Carl Pressley | 3-Aug-2009 4:22 pm
I would tend to agree with the first post. it is hard to see how a strategic advisory practice as part of the firm would work. Competitors are not going to share their best ideas with them as obviously they would then be implemented at Addleshaws. They are also NOT unique, there are several consultancies aimed at the legal market (including ourselves) - the difference being that we are independent of any particular firm and bring lots of experience from outside professional services too!
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Stringer Bell | 3-Aug-2009 4:33 pm
Have to agree with all these posts so far. Can everything in the Addleshaw Goddard garden be so rosy that senior management has the time to be engaged in solving the problems of other firms? If I was an AG partner I would be asking some very hard questions about whether this was even a remotely good idea or not. I'd be wanting the MP to be sorting out the firm, not riding off to the rescue of others.
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ian goulty | 4-Aug-2009 10:57 am
Some of the earlier comments are a bit harsh. As I understood the article it was by no means just law firms that are to be targetted. Also Mark Jones has stepped down as MP after a very long and successful stint. He has steered Addleshaws through two successsful mergers and built up enormous experience of management and consultancy. It does not seem surprising that he might think he can turn those skills to more profitable use than his original litigation skills which I suspect are a little rusty after such a long time as MP. Good luck to him and his team and to those firms that turn to him for advice.
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Anonymous | 4-Aug-2009 3:07 pm
The conflicts points made earlier highlight the problem of this reverse version of Garretts/Andersens (both, of course, RIP) . The giveaway is Jones' comment about a "gateway" for AG - at least he's being honest rather than the "Garretts are independent" rubbish that AA used to peddle.
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Nick Jarrett-Kerr | 5-Aug-2009 6:08 pm
It is not just the conflict possibiliites which are troubling. Strategic consultancy is not the same as legal services. Lawyers and Accountants who think it is easy to advise their own and other professions on how to manage and plan have soon discovered the need for essential differences in approach and methodology. It has taken me some years to learn all this. Whilst your own firms experiences are useful, you cannot succeed by merely trying to apply similar recipes to everyone else.
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Anonymous | 29-Jun-2010 5:50 pm
Take it from one who knows, (I'm a lawyer) lawyers are not businessmen. FACT. Peddling consultancy as freebies for clients is easy, selling it like here on the open market - fatally flawed. Good luck chaps.
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