Pictured: Michael Ward, senior partner at Gateley
National law firm, Gateley has been named 'Best Legal Adviser'
in an independent report on client satisfaction. The top 50 firm,
which has offices in Birmingham, achieved the top score for
personal/partner relationships in the Legal Week Intelligence
Client Satisfaction Report 2011. The report assesses client
satisfaction levels within 75 law firms by surveying more than
1,000 senior in-house lawyers.
In the national category the firm also beat benchmarks for
commercial and legal advice, IT/knowledge management and service
delivery. Clients were most impressed with the firm's in-depth
knowledge of their sectors, flexibility and approachable
nature.
The news comes as Gateley breaks through the £2 billion
barrier for aggregate value of corporate deal transactions. This
follows a successful year which saw the company post a record
increase in turnover attributed to the opening of its Manchester
office in July 2010. The firm also entered the top 50 UK law firms
by revenue for the first time and rose from a position of 20 to 8
in the Experian Corpfin national league table of corporate
deals.
Commenting on the results, Michael Ward the firm's senior
partner and head of Gateley's corporate team, said: "2011 proved to
be one of the most challenging years that law firms and their
clients have faced in recent times and client satisfaction has
never been more important.
"We pride ourselves on understanding our clients' businesses and
aspirations and we look to provide commercial, legal advice that is
relevant to our clients' needs. As reflected in the results of this
survey, client care is a top priority for us and we 're delighted
to have been recognised for our success in this area with such a
high national position in a well regarded industry report."
The Legal Week Intelligence report is in its eighth year and
gathers responses from senior heads of legal at companies who are
making decisions about the hiring of law firms for external legal
advice. It assesses criteria including quality of legal and
commercial advice, service delivery, partner relationships, cost
and billing transparency and use of technology. The top five
highest scoring law firms are awarded the accreditation of 'Best
Legal Adviser' for the next 12 months.
For more information about Gateley, please visit their website
here: www.gateleyuk.com