Profile - Charles Glover: On a mission to lead law firm into a brave new legal world

DIGITAL marketing expert Charles Glover wants to shake up working practices in the legal sector to make it more commercial. Lizzie Murphy reports.

THEY are two very different worlds.

Digital marketing operates in a fast-moving environment while law is often perceived as slow and reluctant to change.

When Charles Glover became chief executive of Atteys Solicitors in February he pledged to transform the working culture of the Doncaster-based firm to make it more commercial.

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His desire reflects a wider cultural shift ahead of the introduction of the Legal Services Act in October, which could radically change the way legal services are offered.

High street shops and supermarkets will be permitted to sell legal services and restrictions on the management, ownership and financing of firms providing legal services will be lifted.

Critics have described the proposals as ‘Tesco Law’ and claim it will undermine the quality of advice.

However, Glover, 46, is an avid supporter of the new legislation. “To my mind, there’s no doubt that the legal services sector brought the act upon itself because it would appear that it wasn’t prepared to change,” he says. “It wasn’t prepared to embrace working practices that were more relevant to consumers now.

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“I think it’s a positive thing. Pricing transparency and so on is how consumers expect to buy things these days.”

He adds: “A lot of consumer brands entering this market have service standards which are just exceptional. I can see that as some of those brands enter this market they are going to bring in service standards that are going to force the industry to wake up.”

Glover believes it’s not the size of the firm that matters, it’s attitude. “There will be some really small firms that will embrace the opportunity and run with it but I think we’re going to see large numbers of firms go out of business,” he says.

One of the first changes Glover made when he took over was to turn Atteys into a limited company, stepping away from the partnership model of traditional law firms.

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“I felt we needed to do that to put us into a more recognised and better understood corporate arena,” he says. “I feel that private equity investors and the people who are likely to come into this market find the partnership environment a bit unsettling. It’s not the corporate structure they are used to.”

Glover says working processes need to change in the majority of law firms.

“Having come out of a fairly technology-dependent sector it shocks me how dated and antiquated some of the technology is and indeed the working practices and the high levels of support staff,” he says.

“There’s no doubt that the majority of law firms need to look at the way they process work and determine where there might be opportunity to work more efficiently, produce things more quickly, and yet maintain quality standards,” he says.

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“We’ve got people potentially entering the market and they don’t have the baggage. They can come into the sector and think in a completely fresh way about the way in which you process a case from beginning to end.

“Perversely I find that whole situation really exciting.”

With all these challenges and frustrations in mind, how difficult is it to be a non-lawyer in charge of a law firm?

“I think I am really fortunate,” Glover says. “I’ve been given the headroom to operate effectively. I’m never made to feel second class because of the fact I’m not a solicitor because while I might not have strengths in terms of my knowledge of the law, what I do have is a lot of business experience.”

Atteys recruited Glover to take the company into a new era following a period of significant contraction with office closures and redundancies resulting from the recession and the huge slowdown in the housing market.

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Glover says the company, which has a large conveyancing team, is currently in a period of consolidation with 145 staff working out of five offices across South Yorkshire and a turnover of almost £5.5m. The firm is profitable but Glover is focused on boosting this figure.

“Although I think non-lawyer chief executives are still few and far between, there are more around now,” he says. “The principles are very similar to the sector I’ve come from. It’s ultimately about selling intellectual property in one way or another.”

Glover has over 20 years of experience owning and running businesses.

The eldest of three children, he grew up in Sheffield where his father had his own waste paper recycling business.

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As a youngster his ambition was to be a car salesman but after a few months’ work experience at a car dealership he changed his mind. “I very quickly realised that that was not what I wanted to do,” he says.

After leaving school, he began his career at the Sheffield Star, working in display advertising sales.

He moved on after two years and went into the early days of mobile phone selling in the mid-eighties, establishing a northern sales office of the company he worked for when he was 19.

“Selling mobile phones was incredibly difficult because they were seen as a luxury,” he says. “At the time the majority were just in the car.”

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He began to target advertising agencies and went on to work for a customer, Stanley Dixon. But two years later, Glover was made redundant following a merger. “It was probably the right time to move on and to get into a larger agency environment,” he says.

He was offered a job at Charles Walls in Leeds where he worked for two years before he moved back to Sheffield to work for John Lovell where he led a management buyout with another colleague, Chris Knight.

The pair re-launched the company as Paradigm in 1996, taking it through a period of meteoric growth to a £3.5m turnover working with clients including American Golf, Travis Perkins and the Samaritans.

The firm went on to merge with Scope Creative Marketing in 2003 to create Dig for Fire. “I think I reached a stage where I needed a corporate transaction to move the company to the next stage,” says Glover.

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Three years later the firm was sold to the AIM-listed Digital Marketing Group and Glover left. “I knew it was unlikely that I would stay in the business because I’m not one of life’s employees,” he says.

“When we sold Dig For Fire in 2006, to all intents and purposes I went into retirement.

“I genuinely wanted to take time out and spend it with my family.

“I think back to growing Paradigm and I remember my son being born at 10.20pm. I left the hospital at 2am and I was pitching to a new business client at 9am the following morning.”

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During this break Glover, a keen sailor, immersed himself in not-for-profit work for the Royal Yachting Association, particularly promoting junior and youth sailing. “My son William was sailing at a reasonable standard so I was supporting him in that,” he says.

“He’s now in the British national youth squad.”

But a few years later he was keen to return to corporate life.

“I was aware of what was going on in the legal sector because my brother is a solicitor and my sister lectures in law,” he says. “It felt exciting because there was change being forced on the sector.

“While the not-for-profit work was really stimulating, I was looking for another commercial challenge and this looked ideal.”

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Glover says he feels he is now finally getting the work-life balance right and spending time with his wife, Jane, son William and daughter Isabel. “I enjoy the mix,” he says.

Charles Glover Factfile

Title: chief executive of Atteys Solicitors

Date of birth: April 17, 1965

Education: King Edward VII School in Sheffield

First job: Display advertising sales rep at the Sheffield Star

Favourite song: Sweet Home Alabama, by Lynyrd Skynyrd

Favourite film: One of the James Bond films, it depends on my mood which one I’d choose.

Favourite holiday destination: Morzine in the French Alps

Last book read: On Tour, by Bradley Wiggins

What I am most proud of: My family

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