Our associate consultants
The list below provides an overview of some of the associate consultants who are available for you to work with when you use our consultancy services. For more information contact us at riskandcompliance@lawsociety.org.uk.
To read about how firms have benefited from this service visit our testimonials page.
Adèle Warchester
Qualified as a solicitor in 1977, Adèle Warchester has had many years experience setting up quality, compliance and risk management systems. As Risk Manager, Client Care and Managing Partner of a city centre practice in Manchester, she successfully took the firm through the Franchise, Investors in People and Lexcel accreditations. Adèle is also a Lexcel accredited consultant.
Now an independent Quality Management Consultant, she advises firms on a national basis on all aspects of quality, professional compliance and risk management. In particular, she has helped many firms to manage operational risks associated with their case and file management and gain Lexcel accreditation to achieve the lowest possible professional indemnity cover. She lectures widely to the profession and has contributed various articles on risk management to publications including the LMS Risk Management Toolkit.
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Alison Matthews
Alison Matthews is renowned as one of the UK’s leading experts on money laundering and professional conduct, she has been advising on AML for over 18 years. Her practical, commercial and no nonsense approach to compliance comes from 10 years experience in a top 10 law firm, at a senior level, including being MLRO.
She spent 12 years in Professional Ethics at the SRA, the majority as the Investment Business Executive involved in guidance and policy. She has a deep understanding of regulation and what lies behind the Code of Conduct. She chaired the Money Laundering Taskforce between 2008 and August 2012, having been a founder member in 2000 and represented the legal sector on the Government’s Money Laundering Advisory Committee and SOCA’s SARs regime Committee.
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Andrew Wyman
Andrew is an independent adviser on the management of risk in legal practice. His background as a solicitor is in private practice partnership, the Legal Complaints Service and the Law Society's Practice Advice Service.
He has advised solicitors nationally on legal practice and procedure, including complaints handling and prevention, PII, anti-money laundering and the transition to OFR. Andrew has also provided training on the subject of PII cover, written articles and reported on PII market trends.
As an adviser, Andrew aims to assist members of the legal profession in the avoidance and management of risk. His view is that effective management systems can ease the burden for solicitors by directly contributing to the effective prevention of client complaints. This allows for a more effective use of business time. It also leads to more easily obtainable PII cover and more affordable annual premiums.
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Bhavni Shah
As a consultant and trainer, Bhavni regularly advises firms on quality assurance and in particular, Lexcel and Code of Conduct compliance. Over the last three years Bhavni has assisted approximately 50 firms with the implementation of Lexcel and an additional 20 firms with Code of Conduct compliance issues. Bhavni was a Lexcel executive with the Law Society between 2003 and 2008. Her responsibilities included managing a portfolio of approximately 300 practices in the Lexcel scheme, providing expert advice to all key stakeholders on the application of the Practice Management Standards and Law Society Policy, delivering training to assessors and consultants and monitoring the application of the Practice Management Standards amongst third parties.
Bhavni continues to be the Principal external Lexcel trainer on behalf of the Law Society, delivering training to assessors, consultants, practices and other stakeholders. In addition, Bhavni contributes regularly to legal and management publications on quality assurance and management issues.
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Bronwen Still
As a solicitor, Bronwen worked mainly on crime, matrimonial and conveyancing cases in a high street practice before joining the Law Society in 1980. Initially handling complaints, she went on to deal with interventions and prosecuting cases before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Subsequently, she led the development of the Professional Ethics guidance service, and headed the policy team responsible for drafting the current Code of Conduct.
Bronwen is now preparing the new regulatory regime for ABSs and outcomes focused regulation. She has also worked internationally, most recently advising the Vietnamese Government and legal profession on the drafting of a first national Ethical Code. She has recently set up Seven Hills Legal Training and Services Limited and is now working as a consultant on regulatory matters.
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Catherine Poulter
Cath was admitted as a solicitor in 1979 and spent a number of years in private practice dealing mainly with family law and general litigation. She also spent 6 years working for the Law Society at Chancery Lane dealing with a wide variety of issues relating to professional conduct and client care before joining the Solicitors Indemnity Fund in 1987. In 1988 she moved to Bristol to establish SIF's first regional office which she managed for 14 years.
Cath is currently a Lexcel Assessor and Consultant, an Investors in People Assessor and Advisor and a Local Conciliation Officer for the Legal Complaints Service. Cath has also recently taken on a role as a Quality Project Consultant for a large commercial practice in Bristol.
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David Gilmore
David founded DG Legal, a leading legal risk management and consultancy organisation, in 2000 which has been instructed by over 700 law firms. We work with the entire range of firms from sole practitioners up to magic circle law firms. David has been funded by a number of government bodies including the Ministry of Justice, the Legal Services Commission, the Office of the Immigration Services Commission and the Welsh Assembly Government. He has also instructed by several of the leading legal representative bodies including The Law Society, Citizens Advice and the Law Centres Network.
David has been writing a solicitors' accreditation scheme assessment on behalf of The Law Society and leading the assessment marking team for ten years. David also writes regularly for Lexis Nexis and www.legalvoice.org.uk, a not-for-profit online magazine.
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Francis Dingwall
Francis is a partner in Legal Risk LLP. He has extensive experience of defendant professional indemnity litigation, having acted for law firms of all sizes, including US firms. He regularly advises on policy coverage issues. He also advises firms on regulatory issues, and represents them when they face action by the SRA. He uses his accumulated expertise and experience to advise law firms on risk management and compliance issues.
Francis is recommended as a leading professional negligence practitioner by Chambers UK. In the 2010 directory, he is noted as a key individual who 'offers consistently clear advice and has strong and robust negotiating skills'. Legal 500 describe him as 'impressive in grasping and explaining complex matters'. Legal Risk LLP is a firm of solicitors providing specialist legal advice on professional indemnity (risk) and professional regulation (compliance) to law firms and other professional practices.
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Frank Maher
Frank is a solicitor with over 25 years experience defending major professional indemnity claims. His experience involves; conflicts, cross-border liabilities, fraud issues here and abroad, property, undertakings, financial services and consumer credit.
Legal 500 describe him as 'one of the leading lawyers in the field,' and 'knowledgeable in the solicitors regulation work'; Chambers UK 2011 (Professional Discipline): 'Clients praise his vast knowledge and his responsiveness'. Chambers UK 2011 (Professional Negligence): ' ... he has a brilliant mind, bordering on genius, and always seems to have everything at his fingertips. Clients praise his vast knowledge and his responsiveness.'
Frank is a member of the Association of Partnership Practitioners and advises firms on partnership law including litigation. Frank is author of Risk Management in the Legal Profession, now in its third edition, and co-author (with Sue Mawdsley) of The Money Laundering Reporting Officer's Handbook: A Guide for Solicitors. He is a frequent contributor to the legal and insurance press and a regular speaker at events worldwide.
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Gabrielle Owen
Gabrielle is a director of BCL Knowledge, a Manchester based firm of management consultants. She has been an accredited practitioner for both Lexcel and Investors in People for several years and has guided many organisations throughout the UK towards the achievement and retention of these quality standards.
Gabrielle previously worked at Manchester Chamber of Commerce where she developed strong working relationships with a large number of firms ranging from sole practitioners to multi disciplinary practices employing over 1,000 staff. In 2001, she pioneered a joint approach to the simultaneous implementation and assessment of Lexcel and Investors in People - a model that has been very successful and widely used.
Gabrielle's areas of expertise include risk management, client care, complaints management, learning & development strategy, practice management and strategic planning. In 2009, Gabrielle was one of the consultants engaged on the Law Society's Client Care Consultancy Service.
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John O'Sullivan
John is a director of BCL Knowledge, a Manchester based firm of management consultants. Over the last 15 years, John has worked with a wide range of organisations throughout the UK, spanning both the private and public sectors. John's areas of expertise include strategic planning, risk management, client care, complaints management and leadership development.
John has significant experience in the legal sector, having provided advice and training to small, medium and large firms. He has also developed a legal quality system that enables firms to achieve excellence in all key areas of practice management. John has been a speaker at a number of legal conferences and, in 2009, was one of the consultants engaged on the Law Society's Client Care Consultancy Service. He is an accredited practitioner for both Lexcel and Investors in People and has guided numerous organisations towards the achievement and retention of these standards.
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Kristina Orton
Kristina Orton is a non-practising solicitor and director of a consultancy business that offers general management advice and training on compliance issues, complaints resolution, Lexcel consultancy and risk awareness.
Kristina is a Law Society consultant and a mentor to law students with extensive experience in professional indemnity, complaints and compliance.
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Margaret Yates
Margaret is a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, having spent many years working in private practice, specialising in Family Law and Conveyancing. She joined the Law Society in 2003, spending a brief period with the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The majority of her time was spent with the Legal Complaints Service as a Coach and Senior Caseworker.
Working with the legal profession on a day-to-day basis, Margaret understood the challenges and provided creative ideas to help firms effectively manage complaints. She also supported a team of caseworkers to meet quality and quantity targets by auditing files, reviewing documents and reports and providing constructive feedback, as well as technical guidance both on an ad hoc and formal basis. Margaret also developed training to meet the needs of a changing environment.
Margaret was instrumental in developing the Conveyancing Quality Scheme and has been a major contributor to the success of the scheme. In January 2012 she started her own independent consultancy, Choice Personal & Professional Development.
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Mark Whittell
Mark qualified as a solicitor in 1982; he has been a partner at Cobbetts for over 20 years specialising in commercial litigation and insolvency matters. He is also a commercial mediator. Having been the practice area head for the Dispute Resolution Services Team for over 10 years, Mark took over as the firm's risk partner in 2009.
Mark's new role not only involves responsibility for regulatory compliance, AML and professional indemnity insurance but he devised a new risk management system for Cobbetts to enable the firm to analyse all the risks it faced, both internally and externally driven, and then to implement action plans to reduce the severest risks to an acceptable level. Mark is now a consultant to other law firms and lectures on risk management issues.
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Michelle Garlick
Michelle qualified as a solicitor in 1992 and joined Weightmans as a partner in February 2008. Since qualification, Michelle has specialised in solicitors' professional negligence acting for both insurers and solicitor insureds in handling claims and complaints. Michelle heads up the Compl-i team at Weightmans advising law firms on regulatory compliance, claims and complaints handling, disciplinary representation, LEXCEL accreditation, AML and risk management issues.
She also assists firms with insurance renewal and offers in-house training to firms on a wide range of subjects including client care, complaints handling and risk avoidance. Other members of the team are able to advise and assist firms on proposed mergers and re-structuring/LLP conversion.
Michelle has been a Law Society consultant on client care and is a well known speaker on the subject of risk and compliance on the legal circuit.
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Nicola Ellis
Nicola was formerly a practising solicitor and now offers practical support to firms, particularly their COLPs and their COFAs, to help them comply with outcomes-focussed regulation and the SRA Handbook. She is also an accredited Lexcel consultant and can assist firms looking at gaining or maintaining Lexcel or CQS accreditation. Nicola became involved in compliance work in 2003, when she gave up private practice to join the Practice Standards Unit of the Law Society (subsequently part of the SRA). While with the Practice Standards Unit she visited firms of all types and sizes to monitor compliance and promote practice excellence, with a particular emphasis on client care and effective complaints handling. This involved helping firms to find practical solutions to issues that were identified. She has also delivered a number of well-received presentations to the profession, mainly through local law societies. Nicola now runs Compliance Solutions for Lawyers LLP and is based in south-west England.
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Paul Leyland
Paul left the army as a Major in 1991, choosing a career in business management in the legal sector. Having held a multi-faceted appointment in Slater Heelis, he moved to Cobbetts, becoming immediately involved in quality and risk management issues; and was responsible for achieving the dual award of Lexcel and Investors in People. Heading the Internal Services Team for Cobbetts, Paul has developed his interest in risk management, passing the Institute of Risk Management examinations as a certificant and applying the theoretical knowledge gained to further develop the Cobbetts risk management framework.
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Peter Johnson
After spending over 20 years in private practice in a mixed law high street practice Peter joined the Law Society as a specialist report writer investigating complaints of inadequate professional service by reference to solicitor's files. He managed a team of 12 investigators and was charged with creating a new complaints preventative team, leading to his appointment as Head of Compliance - later extended to include responsibility for all aspects of client care.
He spent the following eight years visiting firms to provide practical assistance in preventing complaints. This work involved implementing effective client care practices across the firm, and examining where current management and supervision systems could be improved.
Peter also focussed on internal complaints resolution with a strong emphasis on the business opportunities resulting from retaining satisfied clients and gaining from repeat business and client recommendations. Peter undertook a nationwide series of Client Care seminars based on Local Law Societies and was a major contributor to The Law Society's Client Care guide 'Keeping Clients - a client care guide for solicitors'.
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Peter Warner
Peter Warner is a solicitor admitted to practice in 1985. Since leaving private practice in early 1992 Peter has been engaged in management consulting and training, working exclusively with the legal profession. He has given broad business advice to a range of firms over the last 20 years and has specialized in Risk, Regulation & Compliance and Quality Management.
Peter provides training and consultancy advice in the following main areas:, risk management, quality assurance, code of conduct, compliance officers, OFR, the Legal Services Act and management development skills coaching.
Peter has considerable experience of introducing quality initiatives such as Lexcel, Investors in People and ISO9000 standards to firms ranging from 5 to 90 partners. He runs both public and in-house workshops on risk to cover all aspects of risk at both strategic and operational level. In October 2010, Peter also completed a 6 month project with the SRA on piloting Relationship Management in law firms.
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Rob Pearson
Rob is a partner with Curwens LLP where he runs the Property Litigation department, working part-time. For 10 years he was Curwens' managing partner, responsible for their quality, risk-management and anti-money laundering policies. Rob remains the Risk and Compliance Partner and undertakes internal training in all the relevant compliance areas.
In addition, since going part-time (ostensibly to write a book on the French Army in the First World War) Rob has set up his own consultancy business, Compliance Consultancy for Lawyers which provides regulatory support for small and medium-sized firms. He is currently working on a book on Client Care in practice.
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Rosemary Harris
Rosemary is a solicitor with 17 years experience of complaints handling and client care. After a period in private practice, she joined the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors and was later a trainer with Central Law Training on effective complaint handling and client care and presented seminars to local law societies. She is a Local Conciliation Officer clarifying and/or conciliating solicitor/client complaints for the Legal Complaints Service.
Rosemary is also involved in similar issues in the health sector. She is an examiner of communication skills and a lay reviewer resolving concerns about the performance of individual surgeons or units, both for the Royal College of Surgeons of England. She is Chair elect of the Patient Liaison Group of the Royal College of Anaesthetists. She has been a member of the West Midlands Committee of the Department of Health's Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence Awards and has worked with GP practices advising on patient experience.
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Sue Mawdsley
Sue is a solicitor with Legal Risk LLP. She was previously a licensed insolvency practitioner. She has acted for many national accountancy practices and high street banks, as well as conducting high value, technical commercial litigation.
Sue advises many professional practices - from multi-national to high street firms - on risk management, compliance and, in particular, anti-money laundering. Chambers UK 2011 (Professional Discipline) says '[she] ... has an excellent reputation for her advice on money-laundering matters.' Sue has a diploma in anti-money laundering from the International Compliance Association, accredited by the Business School of the University of Manchester and is a Law Society accredited consultant for the Lexcel Practice Management Standard.
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Tania M. Tribius
A London solicitor and partner for many years and now director of niche compliance specialists, Tower Legal Limited - Tania uniquely combines over 20 years' practising and managerial experience, with essential specialist legal knowledge.
A trusted compliance consultant and panel member of the Law Society, Tania has worked with over 2,000 law firms of all sizes and legal disciplines.
Medium sized firms, smaller high street practices and large international firms all value her highly practical, engaging and memorable approach.
Tower Legal's interactive training workshops, consultancy and on-going practical support and resources (Policies, Procedures, Risk & Compliance Manuals) are relied upon by Managing Partners, MLROs, COLPs, COFAs, Fee Earners, Accounts and other Support Staff. Tania is also a Law Society accredited Lexcel Consultant.
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Tim Prior
Tim is a solicitor (non-practising), a Fellow of the Institute of Risk Management and a Lexcel consultant and assessor. Admitted as a solicitor in 1986, he has over 20 years' experience of solicitors' professional indemnity insurance and investigated many hundreds of negligence claims before becoming more heavily involved in risk management. Until May 2010 he was a senior risk management consultant with Travelers, a leading professional indemnity insurer, which he joined in 2000. Whilst there, he advised firms on risk and compliance issues and ran many in-house seminars and workshops for Top 100 firms.
He has lectured extensively since 1996 and in 2010 is the principal speaker at the Law Society's Professional Indemnity Insurance pre-renewal seminars. He now runs PNCR Legal which offers firms advice and training on all aspects of risk management.
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Tracey Calvert
Tracey is a highly experienced regulatory compliance specialist with extensive knowledge of legal ethics, professional conduct, financial services and anti-money laundering regulation. She was employed by both the Law Society and the Solicitors Regulation Authority for over 14 years; she was a senior ethics adviser within the ethics guidance team and, in her last role, was part of the policy team which drafted the SRA Handbook. Her particular responsibilities were in respect of the SRA Code of Conduct and the Handbook's Specialist Services Section and she is in an unique position to advise other lawyers on the requirements of regulatory compliance and the SRA's outcomes-focused and risk-based approach.
Tracey also has a background in practice having worked both in a City law firm and in local government.
She has been the owner and director of Oakalls Consultancy Limited since 2009. This is a CPD accredited company through which Tracey provides compliance, consultancy and training services to individuals and law firms authorised and regulated by the SRA. Tracey is the co-author of 'OFR: Compliance in Practice' (Ark, 2011) and 'COLPs and COFAs: Compliance in Practice' (ARk 2012) and a contributor to 'Cordery on Solicitors' and the ILEX Journal. She is currently working on a new publication for in-house lawyers to be published by the Law Society in 2012.
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Wendy Blunden
Wendy qualified as a solicitor in 1978 and became a partner in a Worthing law firm. At one stage in her long career she ran her own legal practice in Brighton and later in Worthing specialising in ancillary relief and conveyancing.
She has twenty years experience as a Local Conciliation Officer and the Legal Complaints Service has used her analytical skills over recent years to assist them with some of their more complex cases, involving the preparation of lengthy reports.
Wendy is also a Law Society consultant on Client Care and has been visiting firms of solicitors and working with them to provide practical guidance and support to enable them to improve their client care.
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