CEO Report

INTRODUCTION

CEO Report

AUTUMN 2022

It’s been an exciting start to the Autumn at Surrey Law Society HQ and as the nights draw in and the temperatures start to drop, we are looking forward to a busy end of the year and making plans for our 2023 programme.

We held our 4th SLS Legal Awards on 22nd September at the Mandolay Hotel in Guildford. You can view pictures from the event and read a summary of the evening later in the magazine, so I won’t dwell too much on it here, but I do want to congratulate all our finalists and in particular our highly commended nominees and winners. It was so rewarding to receive so many nominations for the programme, having seen it grow so much from its inception in 2018. I would like to thank our generous sponsors for their support of the event, which is essential to making the evening a success. There are also so many partner companies involved in the running of an event like this, from magicians and jazz bands to the venue, the chair and linen suppliers and the production crew; I would like to thank every one of them for their professionalism and fantastic service. If you have any feedback on the event or any recommendations for the 2023 programme, we would love to hear from you, so please do get in touch.

We also resumed our training programme in September and were delighted to host our first in-person session of the season with Stephen Desmond, who delivered an excellent course on Leasehold Conveyancing and Lease Extensions. It was fantastic to have such a busy room, we are definitely seeing an increase in bookings for our face-to-face training and at the time of writing we have the largest number of people booked to attend our Private Client Update with Lesley King next week that we have seen at a course in over 2 and a half years. Running alongside our in-person sessions, we are continuing our online programme and have hosted recent webinars on Mortgage Lending Requirements for Conveyancers and Cohabitation Claims & Property Disputes for Unmarried Couples. As the year draws to a close, we start to think about the sessions that you would like to see on the 2023 programme so please do let us know if you have any topic suggestions or speaker recommendations.

In addition to training, we are also in the midst of preparations for our AGM and Legal Brain of Surrey Quiz, which are taking place on the evening of Thursday 17th November at the Weyside in Guildford. This is always such a fun evening and last year we were fully booked, so I would encourage you to sign your teams up as soon as possible. You can enter a team of any size up to a maximum of 5! As always, we encourage you to bring your colleagues along, but as long as there's one lawyer on the team, your other members can comprise friends, family and loved ones!

Later this month we will hold a meeting of the Quo Vadis committee to look at any improvements we can make to your Surrey Law Society membership, and we’ll be discussing a range of new initiatives for consideration such as a new website, a members-only platform, as well as easier ways to book events and courses, so do watch this space.

I also wanted to remind you about some of the existing benefits of your membership, which you might not be aware of. These include the opportunities to advertise unlimited vacancies on our Find a Job Noticeboard, which we’ll in turn share on our social media channels, or the opportunity to attend or access recordings for the Law Firm Marketing Club’s webinar series. You’re also entitled to access any of the Surrey Law Society back catalogue of webinar recordings free of charge so don’t forget to contact us for log-in details of any of the sessions you might have missed this year. These are just a few of the benefits of your membership so do get in touch if there is anything we can help with.

As always, I want to thank our patrons for their continued support this year, and to draw your attention to the contributions of some of them later in this magazine, where you will find articles on best practice LinkedIn usage by Chadwick Nott, specialist services assisting in estate administration hurdles by Finders International, risks associated with cryptocurrency by Howdens, output from their recent Data Insights Report by Landmark Information, Issues affecting the rise of IHT by Tower Street Finance and Conveyancing Question Time courtesy of LawSure Insurance. Please also look out for further news from our other patrons Evelyn Partners, Moneypenny, Conscious Solutions and TWM Solicitors in our forthcoming e-Bulletins.

Lastly, I would like to invite you to follow the Surrey Law Society LinkedIn page if you’ve not already done so; we update this regularly so you will find all our latest news here! ■

Helen Opie

Helen Opie

Chief Executive & Magazine Editor