Pioneering ABS adds estate agency to boost legal business


Dhanjal: cross-selling bringing IFA clients across to ABS

Dhanjal: cross-selling starting to bring IFA clients across to ABS

The first independent financial adviser to set up a law firm from scratch has added an estate agency to work alongside its alternative business structure (ABS).

Leicester-based Bobby Dhanjal Legal Services (BDLS) has also brought its first trainee solicitor through to qualification, after she spent seven months as a business development manager to familiarise herself with local business needs.

Speaking to Legal Futures, wealth manager and founder Bobby Dhanjal said the estate agency, which like the ABS operates under the Bobby Dhanjal brand and was launched earlier this year, “complements the ABS’s conveyancing department”.

He added: “We are now trying to grow the conveyancing part of the legal business.”

Mr Dhanjal said he resisted the temptation to acquire an off-the-shelf estate agency. “We started it afresh. We didn’t do it through a franchise because we wanted our own branding so it would complement the other two businesses.”

He said the average case size handled by the wealth management division had continued to increase as a result of cross-selling with the ABS. Last year, we reported that the average value of cases had increased from £1,200 to £1,800 as a result of the ABS’s launch.

“We’ve ended up doing a lot more trust business and corporate client care… generally we are now getting clients who are giving us both their legal and financial business. The two businesses are complementing each other, whereas at first it was just the financial advice business that benefited. Now the ABS is benefiting too.”

Sanjit Atkar, who started her training contract with BDLS in January 2014 and qualified last week, joins two other solicitors at the firm, as well as a chartered legal executive, a trainee solicitor, and two paralegals who are working as business development managers.

The firm has a policy of making all non-qualified staff work as business development managers before progressing in their legal careers, so as to better understand the needs of local businesses.

Mr Dhanjal said he was “very proud” to have taken “a non-solicitor through our training programme to qualification”. He added: “It’s not all about the money; that is the value of our business, to make sure individuals come through it and have a proper understanding of what we’re doing. For us it works really, really well.”

BDLS, whose tag line is “A clear voice in legal advice”, has“Leicester’s first ABS” sign-written on its city centre plate glass shopfront.

Tags:




Leave a Comment

By clicking Submit you consent to Legal Futures storing your personal data and confirm you have read our Privacy Policy and section 5 of our Terms & Conditions which deals with user-generated content. All comments will be moderated before posting.

Required fields are marked *
Email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Blog


Use the tools available to stop doing the work you shouldn’t be doing anyway

We are increasingly taken for granted in the world of Do It Yourself, in which we’re required to do some of the work we have ostensibly paid for, such as in banking, travel and technology


Quality indicators – peer recommendations over review websites

I often feel that I am banging the SRA’s drum for them when it comes to transparency but it’s because I genuinely believe in clarity when it comes to promoting quality professional services.


Embracing the future: Navigating AI in litigation

Whilst the UK courts have shown resistance to change over time, in the past decade they have embraced the use of some technologies that naturally improve efficiency. Now we’re in the age of AI.


Loading animation