CM April 2020

ADVERTORIAL
A SUCCESSFUL
BUSINESS IS A
PEOPLE BUSINESS…
Paula Swain, who heads Shoosmiths’ debt recovery
operation, maintains that investing in ongoing training for
the communication skills required for dispute resolution
is key for everyone in the team – including partners,
experienced lawyers, legal executives and paralegals – to
ensure continued success.
CLIENTS, such as Robert Marr, Head
of Legal, Apogee Corporation,
have commented that Shoosmiths’
commercial recoveries service
is ‘at a much higher level than
that provided by an ordinary
commercial debt recovery solicitor’. Chambers,
the highly respected guide to leading UK lawyers
and trusted source of legal market intelligence for
over 30 years, seems to support that view, ranking
Shoosmiths as National Leaders (outside London)
in 2019 for the work of its dispute resolution
lawyers based across England, Scotland and
Northern Ireland.
Shoosmiths’ Scottish team, led by partner
Andrew Foyle, underlined its increasing national
presence and success by achieving the accolade
Debt Recovery Team of the Year at The Herald Law
Awards of Scotland 2019 – the fourth consecutive
year that the litigation and recoveries team in the
Edinburgh office has won the coveted award.
The firm’s relationship as legal partner to the
CICM itself further reinforces the regard in which
Shoosmiths operation is held. Shoosmiths will
shortly assist the CICM with an event in Northern
Ireland, through its recently opened and rapidly
expanding Belfast office and with Gillian Crotty as
the lead litigation partner there.
LOCAL PRESENCE
Paula comments that a key factor in Shoosmiths’
continuing success and recognition, which the
Scottish award and all the other recognition
reflects, is undoubtedly its genuinely national
reach: “Given our spread of locations in 13 offices
across the UK, you are never far from Shoosmiths.
If we do need to value-add our service then we
can provide a single source solution by calling
‘‘If a case is being
handled in our
Solent office for
example, but a
settlement meeting
would be more
conveniently held
in Manchester –
or Edinburgh or
Belfast – then we
can accommodate
that.’’
on the expertise of litigation colleagues across
our network at a location convenient for the
client. This is supplied without the additional
inconvenience and expense of travel that would
otherwise be passed on. If a case is being handled
in our Solent office for example, but a settlement
meeting would be more conveniently held in
Manchester – or Edinburgh or Belfast – then we
can accommodate that.”
That national presence is made even more
attractive by a coherent and consistent approach,
using the same case management systems,
the same billing systems and structure and an
identical approach to team management and
client handling and reporting. Teams focus on
a small group of client accounts, building a
commercial understanding of the client’s business
and credit management function. This includes
how they deal with their trade suppliers in order
to get a real understanding of the client’s aims and
objectives.
Monthly meetings involving the full national
recoveries team discuss service delivery,
improvement and CRM issues and how best
to deliver value. Clients require the benefit of
Shoosmiths’ expertise and commercially savvy
advice on the right tactical approach. There is
little point in offering a solution that pursues a
legal principle if that would cost more than the
debt itself.
INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
But Paula still maintains that, overarching all
these important considerations, is the need to
recognise that the firm’s only real assets are
its own people and how they communicate,
interact and deal with others. This conviction that
communication skills and the ongoing investment
Advancing the credit profession / www.cicm.com / April 2020 / PAGE 52