3rdSix.co.uk is a recruitment site for Chambers and newly qualified Barristers
who have not secured a tenancy. Each year 1500 students undertake the bar vocational course but
there are only 1,000 pupillages offered by chambers per year and only 500 new tenancies.
The site was developed to address the difficulties in recruiting 3rd six pupils / squatters,
given that traditional recruitment methods are very expensive and more often than not, unsuccessful primarily
due to accessing target audiences.
Ascot Drummond provides a broad range of accountancy,
taxation and advisory services to the Bar.
They assist barristers, advocates, chambers and clerks in making informed business decisions and regulatory
compliance - freeing them to concentrate on core business activities.
They do this through a combination of online systems and the expertise of their specialist bar team.
The company is based in Dundee but serves the whole of the UK.
Daniel Barnett, a leading employment law barrister,
owns a company which supplies and distributes own-branded employment law bulletins for solicitors’ firms
to help them generate work and attract new clients. The bulletins are individually branded for the solicitors’
firm and the content can be changed or added to before any bulletin is sent out. All the nitty gritty work in
maintaining the email lists is handled by Daniel’s team.
Bar Marketing concentrates its skills on helping members of
The Bar to compete in an ever changing and increasingly competitive market. Services include the formulation
of strategies, planning and multi-channel execution. They can help with new business generation,
client retention, press, PR and events, webinars, social media and the web.
Bar Marketing is headed up by Catherine Bailey, former Head of Marketing for IRIS Legal Solutions,
the foremost supplier of software solutions for the Bar and law firms.
Bar Squared are the authors of LEX Chambers Management -
a complete software solution for Barristers Chambers. Bar Squared is the latest entrant to the market but employs
an experienced team combining clerks and software developers. LEX runs through Microsoft SQL server and Internet
Explorer so is quick to deploy and can be used easily whether in chambers or remotely. LEX offers: Multi-view Diary -
Case Management - Fees and Billing - Graduated Fees - Workflow - Drill Through Reporting - Marketing - CRM
(client and prospective solicitors) - Solicitor profiling - Mail Merge - Campaign Management - Diary to Exchange to
Blackberry/Windows Mobile - Practice Analysis - Document Management - Time Recording - LEX for Mobile IE -
System Resilience. As of October 2010, LEX has been successfully installed at 76 Chambers across the UK since
its release in January 2007, with a further 12 Chambers currently awaiting deployment.
barristerlink.com is a new service that allows solicitors to contact numerous sets of barristers
chambers simultaneously to check what counsel are available for a case they are looking to cover.
The service is free to solicitors and is paid for by chambers who pay a monthly marketing fee once they have become members
(although at the moment, a sign up to the service is free).
A solicitor with a case to cover, completes an on line form, with the basic case details which is then sent as an email to all chambers
which are registered for that particular category of work.
Chambers then respond to the email enquiry, which is sent through the barristerlink web portal and directly to the enquiring solicitor.
The email which is sent out to chambers does not disclose the details of the firm or organisation.
Berners Marketing provides marketing consultancy and support ranging
from marketing strategy and planning through to discrete projects such as client satisfaction surveys and email marketing.
Sue Bramall presented the results of an informal survey of solicitors’ views of barristers marketing at the IBC conference in June
2010 and is happy to share the results on request.
Brief Counsel Ltd is a new service in the Irish legal services
marketplace that helps Irish solicitors select and manage Irish barristers.
The company (set up by a barrister and an Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year winner) finds solicitors
the most appropriate barrister for their case from all 2,100-plus barristers currently practicing in Ireland.
The company can get competitive tenders from multiple barristers, find the best barrister for the fee proposed
by the solicitor, and guarantee service standards such as deadlines for written work by counsel. The company’s services,
which are free of charge for solicitors, are complementary to those of the Law Library and have been operating successfully
since 2008 on a pilot basis with selected solicitors and barristers before going public recently following regulatory
clearance for the business. Brief Counsel Ltd says that it is always happy to hear from non-Irish lawyers and
professional clients seeking the services of Irish barristers.
Chambers People is a consultancy and staff recruitment service
for barristers chambers and law firms right across England and Wales. They provide staff recruitment at all levels of
clerking and non-clerking posts, and they provide a full range of training sessions for staff in chambers.
They also provide help to chambers on Bar Mark accreditation services, Business Development work, Market Research,
and Freelance Clerking including fee collection. The company director is an experienced former Senior Clerk and
Chambers Director - Martin Poulter.
Clerksroom is the administrative hub of a nationwide
Barristers Chambers with meeting & mediation facilities in London, Manchester and Taunton (where the team of
16 staff are located). They offer a national service with a single point of contact.
There are 57 Barristers (including 3 Queen's Counsel) who undertake private client Civil and Family work at
all UK courts & tribunals.
Fixed Fees in London County Courts can be provided by
4 King’s Bench Walk, the Chambers of Timothy Raggatt QC.
Chambers offers solicitors fixed fee representation by barristers in hearings before District Judges
in the London county courts. Typical rates are £80 for a mortgage possession hearing or a charging order,
£100 for an application listed to last up to 30 minutes and £150 for a small claims trial.
There is no VAT or disbursements on top. Full details are on the website and bookings can be made by
telephone or email.
InQuisita Law, now acquired by Iris, offers a comprehensive chambers management solution for chambers.
It was launched as a new entrant to the barristers market in 2003/2004, designed from the ground-up in
collaboration with a number of users to anticipate the changing and increasingly demanding needs of a modern chambers.
There are now around 40 chambers who use the InQuisita software.
The system is a browser based application enabling simplistic support and
upgrading and offers both fee notes and invoice processing in multi-currency for case billing.
InQuisita Law is also available with a CRM component, can be fully integrated with Exchange for Outlook
users, has the option for an online data security service called IQ Guardian and is provided as
standard with a contractual SLA for the support services.
Iris Meridian Connect is
chambers management software for barristers and clerks providing software for 90% of chambers. The system
offers billing and cash collection through automated workflows, the ability for barristers to access
information at any time from any location, configurable diary and case management,
defined and measured KPIs and reporting procedures and excellent management of cases and diaries.
Instruct Us Now Ltd, based in Edinburgh, organise Counsel for
Scottish Solicitors. They are not a Stable or Chamber and have no ties to any particular Counsel but have
contacts with a broad pool of experienced Counsel.
They organise all types of civil litigation (not just personal injury work). They can also organise Counsel
pre-litigation, in the Court of Session and in Sheriff Courts throughout Scotland.
The company is run by Gordon Stead who worked as a litigation solicitor for over 10 years.
LawComms specialises in marketing communications for barristers.
The company is run by Gerald Newman, formerly a practising solicitor
and also Practice Director in a leading set in the Temple. Online news and other web content are the main specialisms,
along with media relations and e-marketing - the website offers extensive free guides on all these topics.
Professional profiles are written and updated, and seminar notes turned into articles for publication.
Support is provided for web-site development, online news and media relations, marketing strategy, and training.
SproutIT, based in Fleet Street, are specialists in supporting and evolving networks,
hardware and software in the legal industry covering everything from technical support to high level consultancy, project management and
IT strategy. From Diary migrations and case management, to document and contact management systems, they
have worked with the industry leading software vendors.
There are several case studies on the site and a very impressive client list, including many leading chambers including
1 Chancery Lane, 3 Serjeants' Inn, 3-4 South Square, 4 Pump Court, Devereux Chambers, Hogarth Chambers, Quadrant Chambers and XXIV Old Buildings.
Note to companies providing IT and marketing services to barristers - let me know
and I will add you to this list! No charge for this.
email
delia@venables.co.uk
IT and Marketing Services for Chambers
