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Lessons from 10 years as a boutique
One boutique firm partner shares insights gleaned from the decade the firm has been open.
Jess Feyder
The boutique litigation firm, Rose Litigation Lawyers, will soon celebrate its 10-year anniversary. In conversation with Lawyers Weekly, partner Melissa Inglis shared some of the lessons learnt.
Secondly, she advised building strong relationships with professionals specialising in other areas of law, sharing knowledge, and supporting each other as practitioners.
Putting employees first was another key lesson. “The work will come if you take care of your people first,” she said.
Building a good team will allow you to “lean on their strengths”, she said. “You can’t be great at absolutely everything yourself.”
Ms Inglis also commented on the best way to take a client-centred approach.
It’s about understanding what the client wants to achieve, so you can tailor your approach around their objectives, noted Ms Inglis.
“The legal landscape has become much more centred around relationships,” she explained. “Clients want to be able to access you and ask questions, big and small, and find reassurance in that level of accessibility.
“Clients place significant value on this.”
“It’s about being a client’s trusted adviser — if you’re not available for them, or not well equipped to answer their questions when they need you, then they will go elsewhere.”
Lawyers Weekly asked how they ensure they instil values and culture into the firm while managing expansion. “The key is to always remain true to those values,” Ms Inglis responded.
“Sometimes this means passing up what appear to be amazing opportunities if they don’t serve that bigger picture,” she continued. “Never put growth and expansion above your core values as an organisation and as an individual.”
Ms Inglis spoke in more detail about the practice area of litigation for boutiques: “In litigation, time is critical.”
“Clients need to contact you immediately as there are often solutions available at the beginning of an issue that aren’t accessible if a client waits too long.
“A good solicitor will be comfortable to answer questions and provide recommendations to guide a client through the issue immediately,” she illuminated.
“This puts a client’s mind at ease, allowing them to get back to business whilst we handle the issue.”
Ms Inglis mentioned a recent case handled by Rose Litigation Lawyers, which saw the firm secure freezing orders in the Supreme Court of Queensland 36 hours after they were engaged by the client.
The freezing orders related to $1.2 million fraudulently taken from various bank accounts of their client and included “non-departure” orders, which meant the defendant could not leave the jurisdiction.
“If we hesitated, the client was at risk of seeing their money be transferred to an overseas jurisdiction with little to no prospects of recovery.
Clients’ expectations have changed over the past few years, she noted. “Clients are looking for practitioners who have specialist knowledge about the issue needing to be resolved.
“Clients are expressing a preference for someone who knows immediately what they are talking about,” she continued; they are looking for “immediate advice and strategy, plus a sense of comfort from their lawyer”.
Ms Inglis elaborated that clients no longer want to pay for a lawyer to get up to speed on a matter — they want someone who understands the issue, or has dealt with it before, so they can give advice from the get-go.
Clients want a tailored approach, Ms Inglis illuminated, “not a one-size-fits-all approach”.
