Major rebranding sees birth of LCF Law in a brave new world

LCF Law specialises in corporate, property, dispute resolution and personal law, and has around 85 staff across offices in Leeds, Bradford and Ilkley.

Simon Stell, managing partner at Yorkshire-based LCF Law, said: “We asked ourselves a simple question, what do customers want from a law firm and what don’t they like about dealing with lawyers?

“Dealing with law firms can often seem hugely complicated but it shouldn’t be such a daunting prospect.”

He added: “Our firm has always been about simplifying the legal process and we were keen for this to translate into our branding so our new logo, website and corporate literature has all been designed to portray our accessible image.”

LCF Law, which declined to disclose its turnover, said the move represented the biggest shake-up of the company’s branding and corporate image for more than 30 years.

Mr Stell said that the legal sector is evolving quickly and law firms need to adapt and grow in this competitive mar- ket.

Ajaz Ahmed, the Yorkshire-based entrepreneur who co-founded internet service provider Freeserve and is now behind a joint venture with LCF Law called Legal 365, said that the Legal Services Act, which allowed non-lawyers to invest in law firms for the first time, has changed the legal sector.

He said: “The message for law firms is: ‘change or die’.

“But law firms aren’t doing that and they are carrying on doing what they’ve been doing for many years and what they’ve got to do is change the way they operate, they have got to change the way they portray themselves to the outside world.”

Mr Snell said that he expects there will be further consolidation in the legal sector.

“I think the view is commonly that there are more law firms around and there’s too many law firms around for the work available,” he added.

Legal 365, a subsidiary of LCF Law, is an online legal services provider which was set up three years ago.

Mr Ahmed, CEO of Legal 365, said: “We are still in our early days. It’s very much like the start of the internet when e-commerce was available but nobody used e-commerce and then there was a tipping point and everybody started to use e-commerce and it’s the same with legal services over the internet.

“There will come a tipping point when people are comfortable and start using legal services over the internet but that hasn’t happened yet, but it will happen.”

Asking about the financial performance of LCF Law, Mr Stell said the firm had a “strong performance” in its last financial year, which has continued into this year.

As well as its new name, LCF Law has a new tag line, ‘Law, Fair & Square’.

LCF Law’s Bradford office is due to relocate to new open plan premises in Feb- ruary.