Public ownership does not debase standards: Grech

Slater & Gordon's Andrew Grech responds to criticism by Theodora that his firm is a profit-driven factory, delivering industrialised law with the aim of maximising shareholder profits 

Grech:public ownership of Slater & Gordon will not determine whether the company succeeds or not

EVERY month the Slater and Gordon staff newsletter includes a section for 'thank you' letters from our clients.

This month the 'thank you' section included photos of flowers and cards, as well as hand written messages from clients expressing their appreciation for the service and support that they received from our lawyers and support staff. 

These messages are a simple but poignant reminder about the hard work and results that we are delivering for our clients, day-in and day-out.

Criticism in Justinian (The upward thrusting pistons of Slater & Gordon), equating our public ownership to factory law not only degrades the work that we do for our clients (and by default our clients themselves), it degrades our lawyers and our support staff, who work very hard to deliver great service to our clients. 

While it can be easy to ignore snide remarks about our firm, it is difficult to ignore attacks on the professionalism of our staff.

The comments that were published ignore the fact that there is no evidence to demonstrate that firms that are wholly lawyer-owned, or smaller law firms, are more willing or more able to provide a broad range of legal services - including services where profit margins are more challenging. 

Reason and evidence should be used instead of rhetoric. Ownership structures do not determine the professional standards, let alone the values, of the staff working within an organisation. 

The structure that we established, eventually leading to our ASX listing in 2007, is one that has allowed us to deliver affordable, high quality legal services, across suburban, regional and remote locations (and now in the United Kingdom).  

We are fortunate that as a result of our business structure, we are in a position to adapt to changes in client needs and expectations, as well as in the legal landscape.

That listing has provided us with the capital to invest and fund new service lines; improvements in technology; an increase in office locations; better work environments for our staff, and to undertake a broad range of pro bono and philanthropic work. 

Principals and lawyers who have joined us on this journey in recent years have seen the benefits of the public listing and belonging to a larger group.

We are seeing our staff progress through their careers with opportunities that they would never have imagined when studying law.

These are all things of which we are very proud.

We have, since listing, remained resolute in the commitment set out in our constitution (as well as our original prospectus to potential investors) to honour our obligations, first to the court and the administration of justice, secondly to clients, and thirdly to our shareholders. Our shareholders invest in Slater and Gordon with that hierarchy of duties as the backdrop.

One significant difference in being a publicly listed company is that we are transparent in our accounting and reporting - and unlike other operating models, it means that the profits are returned to more than a small ownership group.

Under our ownership rules our staff and our clients can (and do) buy shares in our firm.

Our founders were tenacious advocates for our clients and our lawyers are continuing to honour the ethos upon which the firm was founded.

At the end of the day, the structure of our firm will not determine if we succeed or not – that is in the hands of our clients and their level of satisfaction, or not, with the service our lawyers provide.

For it is the client who is ultimately a better judge of the services they need and how they want them to be delivered.