Legal duty

After revealing a slick new rebrand at the start of July, CooperBurnett’s co-leaders Joseph Oates and Victoria Sampson invited Eileen Leahy to their smart central Tunbridge Wells offices to talk about their successful law firm – and how the company’s new look is already helping it to further stand out from the crowd…

CooperBurnett LLP is certainly one of the best-known law firms in the area thanks to being in the town for over four decades and because of its personable and straightforward way of doing business with both its corporate and private clients. 

Joseph Oates and Victoria Sampson have both been at the firm for over 25 years and have co-led the firm since 2018. CooperBurnett is listed in the Legal 500 and has boasted a number of presidents of the Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge and District Law Society over the years.

“We’d been a firm where we had up to eight owners at one time. This then went down to three when our former partners either retired or moved on. As I had held equity for six months before Victoria, she expected me to become the Senior Partner. But I decided to dispense with that type of traditional hierarchy,” explains Joseph. 

“I thought why don’t we just co-lead the firm? It was about recognising each other’s complementary talents so why would you exclude that for the sake of a job title?”

That, adds Joseph was the start of the pair’s decision to start doing things differently and making their own mark.

Joseph continues: “I would like to think that we’re not mechanistic, we are focused on sustainable growth. I mean, if we look at our staffing numbers, two and a half years ago we were at 38 and now we’re at 51. That is also reflected in our turnover and whether or not it’s good to talk about money, it’s a measure of our success.”

“We have a distinctive culture here at CooperBurnett, not only as an offering to our clients, but also as a place to work. We view both as equally important: Our clients and our people.

“When we joined the practice in the late 1990s it was a traditional partnership where a lot of the emphasis was on who was earning the most fees,” Victoria explains. “The profession back then was very much more general practice and not specialised like it is today.”

Our interview is taking place at CooperBurnett’s HQ Napier House on Mount Ephraim Road which is a beautiful period building right in the heart of Tunbridge Wells. The ambience there today is one of excitement as Joseph, Victoria and Jennifer Irving have just overseen the launch of their rebrand which has been very successful… but more on that later.

“Both of us have had most of our careers here so when we assumed full strategic management of the firm in 2018 it was exciting to have that opportunity to start doing things the way we wanted to,” states Victoria. 

“Although it all happened fairly quickly it was a gift because we had an opportunity to look at what we had. We possessed a very clear focus in terms of how the firm was going to grow and how we were going to bring people in and up.

“It can be lonely being a solo leader so Joseph and I being partners, in business and life, have always had the benefit of being able to brainstorm, discuss – and argue – with each other as needs dictate.”

Joseph infers that initial changes weren’t just limited to dispensing with the age-old hierarchy framework of a law firm but included other radical decisions.

“We wanted to bring Jennifer Irving, our Head of Residential into our senior management team. Now this was fairly unprecedented as she is not a solicitor but I think that was an outward expression of the way we regard her. It was recognition of her deep value to the firm which is far more important than the fact she didn’t go to law school.”

“We would say she has established herself as an incredible ambassador for the firm,” states Victoria. 

“What Jennifer has created in the residential property team is second to none – and her success is the firm’s success. We’re bringing more people like her into CooperBurnett, showing them how they can do it too. Respecting people over hierarchy is key for us.” 

But before we delve further into the nuances of how CooperBurnett does business differently we must, Victoria tells me, rewind back to March 2020 when Covid hit. 

“That night when we sat watching Boris telling us the world is shut we looked at each other and said: ‘Oh my goodness, do we have a business?’ Yes it was terrifying, but looking back retrospectively it opened our eyes to so many things like remote working, flexibility and generally empowering people to do what they needed to do in order to put the business first,” explains Victoria. 

Joseph reveals that during that very uncertain time at the start of the pandemic he came up with the mantra: ‘Wherever you are, we are here for you.’ “It was a firm recognition of that kind of flexibility we could offer our clients and people.”

Also around this time is when the partners came up with the concept of CooperBurnett’s ‘Three Ps.’ 

“This stands for People, People and Profit,” Victoria explains. It’s funny because people told us off at the time saying ‘you can’t talk about money’! But profit isn’t necessarily just about money. It’s about how we can profit from one another and how our community can profit from us. It’s another way of saying value.”

All of the above is what has led to the company’s excellent reputation – especially when it comes to staff retention say Victoria and Joseph.

“We can certainly be proud of that fact and we’re aware that doesn’t happen everywhere. It’s not about offering competitive salaries and then expecting people to put up with the culture. For us it’s about becoming part of a work family.”

Victoria admits she knew from the age of 11 that she wanted to be a solicitor so it’s no wonder that she is so passionate about what she does. “I love my work,” she beams. “I think you have to have passion – whether that’s for people and their progression, your clients or the success of the business – or all three.”

In terms of what CooperBurnett specialises in, Joseph jokes that people could almost define the firm by what they don’t do: “We are a firm of solicitors that can look after you, your family and your business – through the good and the bad.”

Some of their key areas include: Commercial Property & Development, led by co-business owners, Jonathan Rowe and Tom Lumsden, Corporate & Commercial, Employment, Dispute Resolution on the corporate side and Family, Wills & Probate and Property Disputes on the private side. “Our clients demand our expertise. A lot of them own a business and live in this area so usually you either start with the family side of things and then transfer over the business or vice versa. We are very approachable and try to make everything as clear and concise as we can for people. We certainly don’t have the high London rates but this doesn’t mean that there is ever a compromise on our service levels.”

Our conversation then naturally navigates its way back to the subject of people and how well they perform. There are many in TeamCB who have come via the traditional route of law school but, Joseph and Victoria are also passionate about championing alternative ways into the profession. 

“How one qualifies as a solicitor has changed so fundamentally over recent years,” says Victoria. “One of our new trainees, Joshua joined us last year as a paralegal through the MLaw programme, which is done through the University of Kent. So rather than doing what was the old LPC, they do a Masters qualification which enhances the students’ foundations of legal knowledge and equips them for the Solicitors Qualifying Examinations (SQE). Joshua has got a distinction in the MLaw and is now going to train with us. Our advice is do not race to qualify. We think the regulator is trying to accelerate the process which we say doesn’t suit the profession – and it doesn’t suit the clients or the solicitor. You are still learning every day so we are trying so hard to support these people coming into the profession.  

“One of our partners, Sarah Strong, has just celebrated a decade with us and is absolutely phenomenal but it takes time and investment to train somebody. It’s an investment.”

Victoria adds that of course she and Joseph realise they are a business and here to do well but with 50 years of collective experience between them, the pair know they have a responsibility to the next generation entering into their profession: “If we ignore people coming in then we won’t have the opportunity to influence how they are going to look at the profession and I think that is really important,” Victoria stresses. “We like to retain what we see as the best part of the profession’s heritage, namely its broad base of training – just without the absence of the hierarchy. It’s also about recognising the various pathways to progression too.” 

Joseph tells me that another thing that has changed over the years is internal communications. “We meet regularly with our staff and we talk to them about their objectives. That didn’t happen when we started out. We would meet with the partners perhaps once a year to be given a pay review and that meeting would be very short. So here we’re talking about our people’s ambitions within the firm and how these can be used outside of the office. For example, we have a charity committee who come up with ideas for our charitable endeavours, which the firm then supports by pound matching. So for every pound that we raise from our donors we will match it. But we allow our staff to choose who the charities will be and they are changed every two years.” Currently CooperBurnett’s chosen charity is Jigsaw South East.

Joseph and Victoria are also very keen that staff are involved with additional vocational roles. “Natasha Smith is a Trustee of Demelza while we’re both BID Directors and our colleague Tom Lumsden supports Pickering, for whom we also do pro-bono work.

“People note from seeing our social media or reading about us, that there’s more to CooperBurnett than just how many chargeable units you can do in a day,” Joseph states. “There’s an added depth here. Our focus is not just on billing. We support people to bring full value to the firm themselves but we don’t boil it down to those sort of indices – which is quite unusual for a law firm!”

“I think it’s just recognition that we’re all grown-ups and if you’ve got the right work ethic, then you’ll apply yourself. I don’t see the point of micro management,” adds Victoria.

Joseph agrees: “I don’t think that sort of thing generates loyalty. What is it if it’s just numbers and rubrics? Here we have meetings about people’s ambitions and we are here to encourage them to develop. We will help people courtesy of our experience, but it will never be measured by widgets.”

This, I suggest, cycles back to the company’s People, People, Profit ethos doesn’t it? 

Victoria responds say that yes, it is self-perpetuating. “We have the mantra of retain and recruit, but retain comes first always. Our retention is something we are very proud of. We talk about ‘umbilical whiplash’ because people will leave and then want to come back… the second P is also people. We want to work for the best people and have the best work. In short it just makes you feel good and, if you feel good, people are going to want to work for you.” 

Before she has to dash to another meeting, Victoria briefly explains the thinking behind the smart new CooperBurnett branding which was created by BakerWilcox, with a new website crafted by CooperBurnett’s long-time web agency, Target Ink – both based in Tunbridge Wells. “It has been a long time coming and we are so delighted with it as we believe it embodies everything we are about. You have the coral sands colour which symbolises the empathy we have, the navy is reliability and professionalism and then the teal, which runs through the middle, is a nod to our original CB branding. For me it is very personal and represents who we are, what we do and what we strive to be.

“We revealed it to our team a few days before the official launch and everyone loved it. We’ll be 44 next year and two of our longest-serving staff members have been here 40 of those years which is just wonderful as it proves longevity and loyalty.”

“We’ve wanted to create a place where clients want to return and staff remain as well as providing the best service that we can,” states Joseph who tells me that the majority of their clients are from Kent, Sussex and Surrey but that loyalty runs deep so the geography is ever expanding.

“We have many clients who have moved away from the area but will still instruct us. And we’re very grateful for that.”

www.cooperburnett.com