What a clown – they use technology

The “clown” emoji is the latest weapon of choice for some of the noisier participants of social media, using it to describe other lawyers who, in their opinion, should not be carrying out conveyancing.  These typically accompany the accusation that these “clowns” have an over-reliance on technology, and are the cause of the delays we see in conveyancing today.

Putting aside how such comments being made in a public forum damages the credibility of lawyers, these opinions are usually posted after a particularly frustrating case or having received a large number of enquiries from an individual. 

This immediacy suggests that the opinion is more a knee-jerk reaction rather being based on wider research, so I thought it would be useful to look at some of the data behind these comments.

No excuses – there ARE quality issues out there

Frustration amongst experienced lawyers about the quality of other parties is rising and has been for years.  The usual argument that it is due to a lack of professional qualifications is difficult to prove and the parallels drawn with doctors being qualified to carry out operations, is over-simplistic.

This is because with conveyancing, expertise comes from training and experience; the passing of examinations gives a measure of technical expertise, but it is how this knowledge is built upon that has more value.

There are several areas where expertise can be quantified including the quality of reporting and the number, relevance or otherwise of pre-contract enquiries raised.  Although we are a few years away from technology to analyse documents effectively enough to measure the quality of reporting, when it comes to enquiries, my firm, The Partnership does has have data, so I decided to take a look.

The dark satanic mills of factory conveyancing

Most firms use unstructured methods of managing enquiries –either email chains or Word documents, neither of which lend themselves to analysis.  However, we have been storing enquiries in a structured manner for over 10 years, enabling us to analyse this data.  

Our first investigation was to understand just the number of enquiries received, rather than the quality, which is more subjective and subject for a future investigation.  Most of our cases are in London and the south east, 50% of which are freehold and 50% are leasehold.  We analysed 4000 sales transactions from 1500 firms over the last five years and found we received 18 enquiries per case on average.

Let’s address the elephant in the room.

A common accusation is that the main culprits who raise large numbers of irrelevant enquiries are those that some call “factory conveyancers”.  The mere use of this term suggests that such opinions are not based on facts; in my experience, larger firms performing volume conveyancing tend to be in modern purpose-built buildings – I’ not sure they fit William Blake’s description in “Jerusalem” when he talks of factories being “dark satanic mills”.

Given that the larger volume firms such as Simplify Group, Simply Conveyancing and Movera ( formerly O’Neill Patient ) typically attract such criticism, they would be expected to be high on the list. 

Only they weren’t.

None of these firms appear in the top 50 of high enquiry raisers.

Indeed, Premier Property Lawyers, so often the butt of criticism does not make an appearance until number 112, raising on average 19 enquiries per case, just one higher than average.  This was the same as Simply Conveyancing who were at 107 again raising 19 enquiries per case.  Movera are even further down the list at 250, raising just 14 enquiries on average.

So who raises the most enquiries

For those that argue that the Legal Services Act has damaged conveyancing and that only qualified solicitors or SRA firms should be carrying out conveyancing, the list makes some awkward reading.  Out of the top 50 law firms raising the highest number of enquiries, 46 of them are SRA regulated firms, of which, 42 are registered under the Conveyancing Quality Scheme.

The majority of these firms are multi-disciplinary and tend to be smaller, with a lot of them located in the same general geographical area as ourselves.

For full transparency, The Partnership came in at position 139 with an average of 16 enquiries.

What does this mean

Although the numbers of enquiries raised is a blunt instrument to measure the quality of conveyancing, it is a valid general indicator.  Obviously, statistics can be used to prove many different points; some firms may be involved in more leasehold than freehold work for example.

However, rather than aiming such vitriolic criticism at firms and individuals who work at particular firms, it’s never been more important to use data rather than assumptions when forming opinions.

After all, isn’t this what we expect of lawyers?

Peter Ambrose is the owner of The Partnership and Legalito – specialising in the delivery of transparent and ultra-efficient conveyancing services and software.

Peter Ambrose: pambrose@thepartnershiplimited.com, 01483 579978

Press enquiries: Tracy Holland, tholland@thepartnershiplimited.com 01483 579978