Adams Harrison Excellent Lexcel Audit Result July 2020

Adams Harrison is excellent – it is official.

Adams Harrison has held the Lexcel accreditation since 1999 and over the last four days has undergone a rigorous full reassessment. The result being that the firm has passed with flying colours.

What is Lexcel?

It stands for Legal Excellence and is a Law Society accreditation in relation to legal practice management standards that is optional for law firms to attain. Lexcel defines quality management procedures in seven areas: structure and strategy, financial management, information management, people management, risk management, client care, and file and case management.

During the audit there were absolutely no findings of non-compliance and the auditor identified 40 areas of good practice, an increase of four from the annual assessment last year.

The auditor for the assessment, when reporting the outcome, stated that an increase in the number of areas of good practice was a “remarkable result”, particularly in light of the recent Covid-19 pandemic.

Within the auditor’s report he has stated that the firm has a very robust and tested disaster recovery and business continuity plan. Reference was made to the firm having the Cyber Essentials kite mark.

The auditor stated that “processes and systems are extremely well understood by staff, and are also very well embedded into both the operations, and culture, of the Practice.”

In relation to risk management the finding was: “The Practice should continue to be commended for the practical, effective and comprehensive approach it has taken to operational risk management” and “the processes are clearly effective, very well implemented and, taken together, continue to constitute a highly robust approach”. It was stated that Adams Harrison should be highly commended for the work done to remain compliant against the requirements of the Standard.

The auditor was of the opinion that the Practice continues to place “very significant emphasis on the levels of ongoing client care which it provides.”

The report states that “In Lexcel terms, Adams Harrison, continues to be an extremely well run, and extremely well managed Practice – made all the more noteworthy by the fact that it has been achieved in a period of ongoing change and significant uncertainty!!”