Last week it was announced that the Co-Op is to buy 632 branches from Lloyds Bank. This now gives them just shy of 1000 branches. The Guardian journalist Mark King posed a question in Saturday’s paper; Is this the deal to transform the shape of banking in Britain? The branches are not boarded up but come fully equipped with 7000 staff and 4.8 million customers. From a self interest perspective I’m more concerned with whether this will transform legal rather than banking services and whether instead of the much heralded death of the high street lawyer it signifies the return of the high street lawyer.
In March the Co-Op group chief Executive Peter Marks stated that the bank would over 5 years fundamentally change the face of legal services and make access far easier. Do the public really want face to face meetings? Do they want old fashioned service with a smile or do they want updates sent directly to their smart phone without time off work or away from the sofa?
Quality Solicitors are another who operate through a network of high street solicitor’s. Both Quality Solicitors and the Co-Op models seem at odds with the much vaunted assumption that claims are a commodity with the quality of the claims handler or the client journey adding little to the end result. Stories abound of law firms whose unqualified staff are only allowed to ‘touch ‘ a file four times during its life.
Last week’s report from Professor Fenn concluded that damages have fallen by 6% during the road traffic accident portal system. To me this suggests that dumbing down in the handling of personal injury claims does have a consequence; the client suffers.
Face to face time doesn’t necessarily equate to quality legal services and increased damages. It still depends on who you are dealing with. The tantalizing thought for Personal Injury Solicitors who are not based on the high street is whether the swing back to the traditional face to face approach is also the solution to the referral fee ban. Free (ignoring the rent) walk in work.
At the moment 20 shops close each day on Britain’s struggling high streets so that one in six premises are empty. Do two and two make five?