NICHE FEATURE: FREETHS
An honour
and a privilege We often forget to celebrate our successes. Always focused on the next win, the things we once strived for can end up happening with little fanfare. We spoke to Mukesh Patel from Freeths about why applying for awards can help you to celebrate your victories, even before a winner is announced WORDS BY TOM YOUNG
A
ward season. The red carpet’s rolled out. The actors parade along it, each echoing the phrase: “It’s an honour just to be nominated”. Watching on TV at home, we cynically mutter: “Yeah, you say that now…” But there’s an important truth to that sentiment – the work we’re proud of deserves to be recognised. Mukesh Patel is a Dispute Resolution Partner, and the Managing Partner of Freeth’s Leicester office. Freeths is a Top 50, full-service law firm, with a head office in Nottingham and 12 locations around the country. Mukesh is originally from Leicester, attending a local comprehensive before going to university and then down to London to do his articles. Initially joining a firm called Davies Arnold Cooper (now DAC Beachcroft), after nine 44 | NICHE
years, he returned to Leicester in 2000, working for Gateley, and eventually joining Freeths in November 2008. With over 1000 staff, Freeths has enjoyed phenomenal growth, and Mukesh believes award recognition plays a role in that. They won Lawyer Litigation Law Firm of the Year in 2020 and have also won awards for IT innovation in the legal world. “We’ve always appreciated that we need to embrace technology in order to work smarter and more efficiently,” says Mukesh. “The last two years have demonstrated that investing in technology and people is invaluable. Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to work with the agility that we do now.” These awards can be used to underscore good practice and good decision making. Mukesh believes there’s greater
