Martin Searle Solicitors win the Law Society Excellence in Business Development Award
Martin Searle Solicitors, specialists in employment and community care law, were winners of the Excellence in Business Development Award at the Law Society Excellence Awards Ceremony on 20 October 2016.
The ceremony, hosted by BBC Radio 4 Today programme presenter Mishal Husain, saw ten firms and eight individual solicitors receive awards across the 18 categories, along with a further 21 highly commended entries.
Law Society president Robert Bourns said: “The competition for these awards is becoming ever more fierce and each winner should be particularly proud of their achievement in the face of so many outstanding nominees. The standard they set is an example to the whole solicitor profession.”
Those judging Excellence in Business Development were looking for business development initiatives in the legal sector, which both challenged convention and created greater added value.
Martin Searle Solicitors were recognised for their innovative Services for Professional Deputies and Attorneys, which the judges said “stood out in the category”. The service provides specialist casework support and advice to experienced private client solicitors who have responsibility, as Deputies, for managing complex financial and care arrangements for vulnerable clients. The Law Society award recognised that the firm’s innovative legal care offering “benefitted care professionals as well as the vulnerable and elderly they serve”.
Cate Searle, Co-Director and Head of the firm’s Community Care Law team says: “Many private client solicitors will not have had to use public law principles to challenge decisions made by health or social services until the Care Act 2014 changed the landscape in April 2015. This is where my team are able to provide specialist Community Care Law support to add value to the services that Deputies and Attorneys offer their clients.”
Founded in 2004, Martin Searle Solicitors now occupies six offices across the South of England. The firm has the largest non-legal aid community care law team in the South. Alice Macnair became the seventh member of the community care law team when she joined as a Trainee Solicitor earlier this month.
Cate says, “Our team has diverse experience, including those with a background of working for Health and Social Services. We obtain excellent results and secure the best outcomes for our clients because we know how the system works, from the inside.”
