What better way to celebrate 190 years of the firm’s existence with recent reaccreditations for Lexcel and Customer Service Excellence.
The firm was subject to assessments for the reaccreditation of The Law Society Lexcel Standard and the Customer Service Excellence Award recently.
Adams Harrison Solicitors have now held the Lexcel accreditation for 25 years. Lexcel is not an obligatory accreditation for firms of solicitors to hold. It is a mark of excellence if obtained. It is a legal practice quality mark for client care, compliance and practice management. In particular the following areas are assessed:
- Client care
- Risk management
- People management
- Structure and strategy
- Financial management
- Information management
- File and case management
Adams Harrison Solicitors were one of the first firms to receive the Lexcel standard. In this year’s reaccreditation our assessor made the following comments and observations:-
“…..the Practice should again be very highly commended for sustaining a very high level of compliance against the Lexcel standard”.
“…..it remains very clear that compliance remains deeply embedded within the ethos and culture of the Practice”.
“….the firm remains an extremely well run, and extremely well managed Practice”.
The assessor commented that Adams Harrison should be highly commended for the on-going and very comprehensive staff training and communication that it has in place for cyber security, as well as the accreditation against the Cyber Essential Standard.
The assessor stated that the Practice showed significant emphasis and resources devoted to ensuring the wellbeing and mental health of its employees, including the availability of mental health first aiders.
The assessor stated that the firm continued to have very high standard in terms of training and development of its staff as well as on-going coaching, mentoring and support offered to all staff.
The assessor stated that there remained a very clear understanding from fee earners on all aspects of risk and that operational risk management was dealt with comprehensively and effectively. He also stated that supervision was comprehensive and well embedded.
The assessor stated that it remained very clear that:
“the Practice continues to place very significant emphasis on the levels of on-going client care which it provides and in the very great majority of instances it clearly does so…” He commented on the low level of complaints and claims.
Customer Service Excellence is not unique to the legal sector. It is a National Quality Mark that seeks to recognise organisations that have a truly customer focused culture. This was our 3 year assessment. We obtained full compliance in all areas and “compliance plus” in a number of areas, also.
It was determined that Adams Harrison:
“comfortably achieved the high standards necessary to continue to be accredited against the Customer Service Excellence Standard”.
The assessor stated that there was very clear evidence from the staff members that were interviewed that there was a desire to want to provide excellent customer service/client care. The assessor stated that it was very clear that our staff were adept at effectively communicating with clients and managing their increased expectations.
The assessor stated that Adams Harrison puts Customer Service Excellence “at the heart of everything that they do”.
