Has the Co-operative gone completely mad?

Has the Co-operative gone completely mad?

In recent times it has been reported that the Co-operative has lost over £3.5 million via its legal division, but at the same time it plans to introduce apprentice-style online legal career training to new employees.

The Co-operative has been offering legal services for some time. Salaries appear to be higher than on the high street and the Co-op has never seemed particularly bothered about recruiting staff with particular qualifications – ie solicitors - and are more concerned with experience.

At the same time they have an LSC family contract and took on a whole tranche of family lawyers including a high profile lawyer from TV Edwards.

It must be asked though – which executive at the Co-op thought there was money to be made in legal services like LSC funded family law work? How does the Co-op plan to make legal services a sustainable service like their funeral arm? Did they really look into the market in any depth before taking the plunge?

One would have thought that it doesn’t take much research to work out that a high profile family lawyer from TV Edwards earning say £65,000 is going to need to do about £190,000 worth of work in a year (or add value to the business for the same amount) to justify their existence. How on earth would this happen when most LSC funded family law work is paid at a rate that would require a solicitor to bill 100 hours a week to get anywhere near to this?

Yes, but the probate is where the money is. This is almost certainly true, but how many people feel comfortable talking about probate to a funeral director or a call centre operative recommended by a funeral director? How many prefer to speak to the local solicitor who will almost certainly be cheaper, and also be considered by the client to be more accessible and available than a legal adviser speaking to them via the telephone from Cardiff?

Have the Cooperative gone completely mad? Quite possibly. After all they did buy up rather a lot of toxic debt from a building society lending to anyone and everyone around that well-known boom town of Stoke-on-Trent…..

Does any of this benefit solicitors firms in competition with organisations like the Co-operative? Who knows…..

Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and regularly writes the Legal Recruitment blog, an award-winning selection of articles and features on legal recruitment and the legal profession. You can contact Jonathan at cv@ten-percent.co.uk or visit one of our websites.

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - Online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals. Visit our Website to search or download our Vacancy Database or view our Candidate Database online.

Our Legal Careers Shop has eBooks on CV Writing for Lawyers, Legal Job Interview Guide, Interview Answers for Lawyers, NQ Career Guide, Guide to Finding Work Experience or a Training Contract and the Entrants Guide to the Legal Profession. To visit our Sale/Clearance section please click here.

www.ten-percent.co.uk/careersshop

Overpaid Charity CEOs - top 40 of high paid employees - updated 2022

In 2014, we wrote an article about high pay in the charity sector after the Charity Commission started to require all charities to disclose pay of senior executives earning more than £60,000. We have updated the list for 2022, with a comparison chart so you can see the difference between 2014 and 2022. We have included the source of the most recent salary levels and the year refers to the accounts year we extracted the salary information from. 2022 Top 40 Chart of High Paying Charities Charity Highest salary Year Consumers’ Association £390k-£400k 2020 MSI Reproductive Choices £240k-£250k 2020 Save the Children International £285k-£300k 2020 Cancer Research UK £240k-£250k 2020 The British Red Cross Society £170k-£180k 2020 Age UK £180k-£190k 2020

Is it possible to work as a Paralegal when you are a Qualified Solicitor

This question comes up all the time and is quite a common query that we imagine the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) are getting better at answering due to the sheer number of people asking the question. Many years ago the advice seemed a bit varied at times, but we have recently had a candidate who wanted to work in a locum role in the short term and waiting to go back on the Roll and get a practising certificate after some time spent outside the profession. She has been given fairly concise advice on whether she could work as a paralegal whilst waiting to be readmitted which we are repeating here. This article is written as a discussion point and is not intended to be advice in any shape or form. For full advice on your particular set of circumstances please speak to the SRA (or whoever else you like, but please do not depend on the information in this article!). The SRA have a simple online test to determine if you need a practising certificate and this i

What questions are asked in an Investors in People Assessment?

Recently Ten Percent Legal Recruitment was assessed for the investor in people accreditation. We worked very hard on this and spent some time as a company ensuring that all our procedures and policies were in place and that our staff were aware of the various requirements of the Investor in People process. We wondered how the assessment would go and also what the questions were likely to be during the interviews. The assessor was very friendly and explained from the outset what she was wanting to do and we were already aware that we would have thirty minute interviews with the directors and managers and twenty minute interviews with the staff. We also had the Investors in People programme so we were able to look and see what the actual questions would be based on, but there was nowhere to indicate what questions would be asked in the investor in people assessments. So if this helps anyone else, here are the questions we were asked in our investors in people accreditation: The assessor

Legal Recruitment Blog

Search This Blog