Small law firms are the best! If you follow the legal press (Who doesn’t? Or let’s be really honest) you can’t help but notice a few themes.
- The biggest firm in Australia now has 219 partners. So there’s growth in the traditional sector despite all the so-called business disruption from technology solutions.
- Mergers are painful. At the end of series 2 (from memory) of Suits there are a couple of episodes where there is a merger, describing all the pain of making efficiencies that just about seems to get it right in a bizarrely drama-driven way. The reality reported in the media appears no less dramatic.
- Small firms can be unstable. Here in Canberra, it’s like a bloody chess board the way people firm-hop.
Of course, Canberra has a big reputation for being over-served (and over-charged) by “corporate law” and as we reach our five year anniversary, growing discretely from a sole practitioner to four lawyers, and a total of 10 great staff, it’s nice not to be any particular media theme. We have deliberately stayed small and personal, we’ve dodged the merger bullet, have amazingly low staff turnover and we really try to be fair in how and what we charge. And all our systems are cloud based – thank you ActionStep and Xero (go innovation-New Zealand).
We try to remember to give a little back and its usually to non-traditional causes, whether it’s a contribution to Sunshine Orphanage in Cambodia, or dog welfare in Tonga, as well as supporting the occasional worthy event. And we’re not above getting a bit of help like our recent communications workshop – after all, everyone needs to be able to talk to each other properly!
So a five year trumpet blog for the now not-so-new kid on the block!
Thank you to all our clients, and please keep calling.
