CEO Report

INTRODUCTION

CEO Report

APRIL 2021

Spring is now upon us and as the weather warms up and lockdown restrictions ease, we are feeling optimistic about what the rest of 2021 has to offer.

It has certainly been a more challenging start to the year than we had hoped for, but we have been pleased to continue our online programme of training with a number of excellent webinars, courses, and online forums. We were also delighted to welcome our new president, Mumtaz Hussain, at the recently reconvened AGM, who I am thrilled to be working with moving forward. I would also like to say thank you to Nick for all that he has done in his extended presidential term. The pandemic has thrown all manner of challenges at the organisation and it has been a pleasure to work through these with Nick, who has committed so much time and energy to ensuring that the Society remains of value to members during these difficult times.

Moving forward, we are continuing with our Training & Events programme for the year, which offers a hybrid schedule of online and in-person content and can be viewed overleaf. The Government roadmap out of lockdown currently states that some events, with limits on capacity, can resume from 17th May, with events of any size being permissible from the 21st June. As such the Society is delighted to confirm that we will be resuming our face-to-face activities from 24th June, commencing with our Past President’s Championship Cup at Daytona, Sandown. This event is a great opportunity to get together with your colleagues for some healthy competition and much needed team building, as well as offering fantastic networking opportunities with your peers. The entire event is held outside, and the venue has excellent COVID-safe procedures in place, so if there is a slight delay in the easing of Government restrictions, we should still be safe to go proceed. You can however book with complete confidence that if it is deemed unsafe to go ahead, your booking will automatically be transferred to a date when it is safe to proceed or refunded in full in the event of total cancellation. We would be thrilled if you could join us for this fantastic occasion, which will be made all the more the special by the fact it will be the first event we have had held since our conferences in February 2020.

The Society is also resuming its in-person training courses from 30th June as well as progressing plans for our Annual SLS Legal Awards, which are now confirmed to take place on Thursday 16th September 2021. Nominations are open for the Awards and I would like to sincerely encourage as many members as possible to review the 10 categories, which can be viewed later in the magazine. We are extremely keen to showcase the amazing work that you have been doing during these extraordinary times and have the opportunity to celebrate this and the achievement of colleagues and peers in September. The nomination process is surprisingly simple and should not take up too much of your time; this year we have prepared nomination forms for each category, so you can download the relevant one and complete everything that’s needed from there. There is no limit to the number of nominations that you can submit, so please do consider making submissions for yourself, your firm, or your colleagues.

Moving away from events, the Society is thrilled to welcome a number of new patrons, who have partnered with us since the last issue. They are:

■ Landmark Information: a leading supplier of legal products and data to support the UK’s property professionals.

■ Chadwick Nott: a boutique legal recruitment consultancy established in 1992 with offices across the UK.

■ Conscious: a specialist agency providing design, websites, and marketing for law firms.

■ Pro Drive IT: expert providers of cyber security strategies and IT support based in Guildford.

They join our existing partners, HFS Milbourne, Access Legal (formerly DPS Software), Finders International, Moneypenny and LawSure Insurance. We look forward to working with all our partners over the year and thank them for their continued support.

Lastly, I would like to welcome Claudene Howell from Pearson Hards Solicitors, who has recently joined the SLS Committee. We are always thrilled to welcome new members to the group and look forward to working with Claudene, particularly on our initiatives for Family Lawyers. If you are interested in joining the Surrey Law Society Committee, please do get in touch, we would love to hear from you.

All that remains, is for me to wish you a very pleasant Easter and I do hope to see you soon at one of our events or courses, it will be lovely to catch up with you all in person at last! ■

Helen Opie

Very best wishes,

Helen Opie

Chief Executive & Magazine Editor

T. 0333 5773830

E. helen.opie@surreylawsociety.org.uk