[1]Chapman: exponential growth
Riverview Law, the fixed-priced commercial law business, is to double in size by creating up to 100 new posts over the next year, it announced today.
The firm – which has applied to become an alternative business structure – said the appointments are a result of “recent contract wins with a number of FTSE 100 businesses”, but would not identify the new clients.
Around half of the new roles will be for qualified lawyers and ‘business law executives’, with the others for the likes of client managers, IT developers and data analysts. Most will be based at Riverview’s offices on the Wirral, and the firm hopes to have at least 25 of them on board by the end of the year.
Riverview only launched in February 2012. CEO Karl Chapman said: “Our exponential growth rates show that customers are voting with their wallets. The direction of travel for the legal market, and Riverview Law, is very clear and is the reason we’re keen to recruit so many people.”
Last year, Mr Chapman said [2] he would not employ many lawyers currently available because they do not have the right skills. “They cannot do what’s required in a customer service environment,” he explained.
Riverview has created a host of new roles – all of which he said need some degree of legal knowledge – such as project managers, scoping and pricing analysts, management information and data analysts, knowledge management specialists and client managers. “Some of best people we’ve got are senior lawyers doing legal workflow and process analysis,” he added.
However, “legal competence is only part of the picture” – clients need to know what to do with the advice to give it any value.
In May, Riverview signed a strategic alliance [3] with south-east firm DMH Stallard that will see the pair pitch jointly for new business. It said the deal aimed to meet unexpectedly high demand for its ‘legal advisory outsourcing’ model, in which in-house teams are reduced to a core role with all day-to-day legal work outsourced on a fixed-priced contract to Riverview.
Riverview’s contracts are focused on businesses’ everyday legal needs and the deal brings in expertise where the firm does not currently have it, particularly dispute resolution, mergers and acquisition, and property.