CEO Report

Spring 2023

It’s lovely to be writing my report for this issue with warmer weather around the corner, the clocks have just moved forward, the daffodils are out and yesterday there was a hint of sunshine, albeit only briefly.

The start of Spring means renewal time for the Surrey Law Society, and you have hopefully by now received your renewal notice from the office. I would like to express my thanks to all those who have already processed their subscription for 2023/24 and ask anyone who does not believe they have received their notice, or who has amendments to make to their subscription, to contact the SLS office as soon as possible. As you are hopefully aware, your annual membership of the Society entitles you to a large number of benefits, including but not exclusively:

• Eligibility to enter the SLS Legal Awards

• Training discounts and offers including 50% of the cost of our inperson and online courses.

• Free attendance at all the SLS webinars

• Unlimited opportunities to post vacancies on our Job Noticeboard

• Exclusive invitations to our Social Events

• Access to the Law Firm Marketing Club

• The chance to feature editorial in the the quarterly Surrey Lawyer Magazine

You can view full information on all the other benefits at our website, www.surreylawsociety.org.uk. You have hopefully by now seen the new website, which has been completely revamped to make for a much more streamlined user experience and sleeker design. On the website, you can find all our latest news, a full list of our training and events, a back catalogue of Surrey Lawyer issues, a list of members’ job vacancies and information on all our patrons.

On the subject of patrons, I want to extend my sincere thanks to our partners for this year, who are:

• Evelyn Partners (www.evelyn.com)

• Landmark Information Group (www.landmark.co.uk)

• Southey & Co (www.southeyandco.co.uk)

• Tower Street Finance (www.towerstreetfinance.co.uk)

• Finders International (www.findersinternational.co.uk)

• Pro Drive IT (https://www.prodriveit.co.uk/)

• Conscious Solutions (www.conscious.co.uk)

• LawSure Insurance (www.lawsureinsurance.co.uk)

• Teal Compliance (www.tealcompliance.com)

It really is a great pleasure to work alongside such a fantastic group of firms, each of whom offer exceptional services to the industry at the highest standards. If you haven’t done so already, I really would encourage you to visit their websites or reach out to them at one of our training sessions or events, to see how they might be able to assist you. In particular, I would like to give a warm welcome to our new patrons for 2023, Southey & Co and Teal Compliance.

Southey & Co are RICS Chartered Surveyors and Property Consultants specialising in working with law firms; they are dedicated property consultants, who will minimise the time you need to spend on nonlegal aspects of estate administration whilst providing you with the documentation and transparency required to meet your compliance obligations. Both Barry Mattock, Southey & Co’s Group CEO and Michael

Edwards, Group MD, attended our recent John Perry Memorial Dinner and I would encourage members at any future events to have a chat with them to fully understand the incredible service that they can provide to assist you.

Teal Compliance are a team of experts in compliance with extensive experience in the legal industry. Their services include conducting comprehensive audits to assess your firm’s compliance with relevant laws and regulations. They also draft and review policies and procedures to ensure your firm is up-to-date with the latest legal requirements. Additionally, they offer customised training courses to ensure that your staff is knowledgeable and up-to-date on key compliance topics. Teal was founded by Amy Bell, author of ‘Solicitors and Money Laundering and Compliance That Works’ and Chair of the Law Society’s Money Laundering Task Force, and we’re very fortunate that Amy has agreed to run some compliance sessions for Society members later in the year.

In other news, the Society has held a range of training sessions since the start of the year, and it was lovely to see so many of you attend these. We’ve run webinars on ‘One Couple, One Lawyer’, ‘How to Support and Assist Vulnerable Clients’ and ‘Delegation Skills for Lawyers’, alongside online courses on ‘SDLT & CGT – The Latest Updates for Conveyancers’ and ‘Understanding Surrogacy, Child Abduction and Adoption’. We also held our first in person course of the year to a full house of members, a ‘Will Drafting Masterclass’ by the excellent Professor Lesley King.

Last week, we kicked off our social events with the 2nd John Perry Memorial Dinner, which was a fantastic evening for members past and present and which you can read more about later in this issue. Our next event is the highly popular, Past President’s Championship Cup, which takes place at Daytona Sandown on Thursday 15th June. If you haven’t attended before and fancy taking a part in this hotly contested go-karting competition, do book your space early, as last year we were fully booked!

And lastly, we have our 5th SLS Legal Awards taking place later in the year and there is some exciting news about that overleaf. Nominations are open and we’d encourage you to submit your entries as soon as possible, as this year’s event is sure to be bigger and better than ever before!

Helen Opie

Chief Executive & Magazine Editor

T. 0333 5773830

E. helen.opie@surreylawsociety.org.uk

@SurreyLawSoc

@surreylawsociety

Helen Opie (Chief Executive at Surrey Law Society)

Surrey Law Society