Exchange Chambers

An analysis of The Lawyer’s Bar Top 30, which ranks the leading Chambers in the country by turnover, suggests London very much remains at the centre of the Bar’s universe. Only two Chambers outside London make it into the Bar Top 30 league table at all - and there is not one regional Chambers in the top ten.

Headline turnover statistics can be misleading in terms of overall quality and market standing however. While the cuts to publicly funded work continue to bite - and indeed threaten the very existence of the criminal Bar as we know it - the privately funded regional bar is in good health and has withstood the recession well. This has very much been the case for multi-disciplinary Chambers, with a definite rise in litigation and insolvency related instructions.

Those Chambers outside London harbouring a business-minded approach – realising that in the current climate size does matter - are also beginning to spread their wings. We are seeing sets expand both by merger and by organic growth to achieve a wider geographical spread and realise the economies of scale.

The advantages and disadvantages of both mergers and organic growth are well documented. A merger creates immediate critical mass and market share while organic growth allows a set to expand without impacting on its culture or compromising on the overall quality of its offering. Our own preference is very much for organic growth in the three major cities in which we are now based.

Speaking recently on the future of the Bar, Chairman of the Bar Nicholas Green QC outlined the challenges we must all overcome in a period where “clients want more work for less money but delivered at the same or higher quality."

To compete and prosper, we believe that Chambers in the regions must play to their strengths and continue to innovate. We must focus on the key regional legal centres – in our case Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds – expand our service offering and forge ever stronger links with local solicitors.

The London Bar is of course immensely strong - it always will be – but it has become an overcrowded space. Many of the country’s leading silks and juniors are developing their practices from regional sets where strength in depth is similarly demonstrated.

Our message to solicitors operating out of the regions is that there is simply no need for them go to London when the regional bar is so strong and already offers an outstanding service. Encouragingly, this message is striking a chord but there is much work still to be done.

Regional Chambers have the advantage of being very competitive in terms of fees. Property costs and general overheads are lower which means a high quality service can be delivered at a relatively low cost.

It would however be an unnecessary mistake to compete solely on the basis of lower fees in an attempt to win work. The larger regional Chambers are no longer the poor relations to the London sets in terms of infrastructure and resources. We employ practice managers and support staff, we invest in new IT and provide value added services including extensive in house training for solicitors.

There are also recruitment advantages to being based outside of the capital. Members’ contributions from barristers are well below London rates while new pupils are attracted not only to the enhanced work life balance on offer, but also to the promise of working on quality cases close to home.

Perhaps the greatest asset to the regional bar now is the widespread acceptance that it must continue to evolve and change. We can no longer wait to see what the big London sets are doing and follow suit. We need to pursue strategic objectives to deliver the very best advocacy to our clients, whilst internal communication remains equally important. Barristers may well be self employed but they are also part of a wider business and will only derive the maximum benefits from it by working as a team.

The challenges we face are considerable – but there are exciting opportunities in there at the same time. We need to be progressive. We need to be forward thinking. We need to embrace new business structures. We need to get both bigger and better, all at the same time. There is much to do but we are well placed to deliver.

Bill Braithwaite QC is head of Exchange Chambers (Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds). He was named as Personal Injury Barrister of the Year at the 2010 Personal Injury Awards.