Legal Awards 2021

6 | Legal Awards 2021 Mar21142 are opportunities to work with Impact Partners, inviting clients to be educated or inspired by a variety of topics and speakers. These events often have a diverse attendee list, from high net worth individuals to small business owners, and from experts in their fields to newer professionals. The most recent event held was a debate regarding the types of impact one can have on the world, on their sector, and on the market in which they operate. All attendees were invited to participate in this debate, and showed that regardless of scale, each person had a powerful voice to put forward. Everyone in attendance was so invigorated by the discussion that the event ran way past when the organisers originally thought. Berkeley Rowe wishes to cultivate an atmosphere of fun and enthusiasm in the office, refusing to take itself too seriously. In this way, it cultivates an environment that is both a place its staff want to work in, and a place its clients are happy to step into. ‘Life is complicated enough,’ it says, and instead encouraging open communication and an informal, mutually supportive atmosphere. It even has a psychologist who comes to visit the office every now and again to bolster this. This individual’s role is to check in with the team from as an impartial third party perspective, ensuring that even if staff don’t feel comfortable talking about issues to someone within the company, they have the option to confide in someone not ingrained in the business. Having said this, it encourages a culture of awareness when it comes to mental health issues. Whilst it will always respect an employee’s privacy and need for confidentiality, it will always be open and receptive to team discussions of mental health and putting forward mitigating solutions that would alleviate some of the challenges people facing its employees with anxiety, depression, or other conditions. It facilitates dialogue amongst its team members, normalising a culture of people being able to ask for what they need. For example, on a construction site, all employees wear PPE, and the safeguarding for healthy minds must be just as rigorous, as it is just as important. Thus, it strives in everything to create a workplace where if people feel like they need help, they can ask for it, and it is given. In this vein, it refuses to subscribe to an attitude of ‘difficult people’; it will not stand for toxicity or ‘office politics’ that can at times make for unhealthy workspaces. Instead its policies of openness and honesty give employees the safe spaces they need to bring up concerns or critiques in constructive environments. Berkeley Rowe thus buck the usual standard of its industry wherein there can be a prevailing attitude of not ‘rocking the boat’. Alongside its staff, the people who benefit from all the effort this company funnels into improving its internal structure are the customers. Berkeley Rowe place a strong emphasis on the mental and physical wellbeing of all of our employees; they don’t just want to be a Top 100 law firm, they want to be the happiest law firm. They hope to lead the way on mental health in professional services. In a sector with such high rates of suicide, depression and anxiety, they consider it their duty to protect their team from the overwhelming pressures that are unfortunately so common. Apart from the mental health support they also designate five hours a week to physical exercise to help the team look after their physical health and partake in group sporting activities that range from Soul Cycle to walks around Hyde Park. Berkeley Rowe’s staff come to work refreshed, invigorated, and ready to give it their all, and this is shown in both its case success rate and the number of satisfied clients that sing its praises. It acknowledges that stress will always be a part of the job. Law is a dynamic and changeable field, where multiple factors merge into a melting pot of complexities; but this should always be carefully managed. This company is also enthusiastic and excited to learn new things, not just constrained to the fields of legalese. Therefore, the events that it runs welcome in a diversity of voices all with something fresh and new to bring to the table. By keeping this open-minded approach to new ideas, it improves its solutions, broadening the perspective and understanding it can apply to its work. In this way, it hires people who share this fervour for growth. It is disinterested in picking candidates who are perfect right away; instead, it chooses the personality and attitude, seeing the drive behind a person. Then, it can nurture them and their skillsets to tackle bigger and broader cases. This is how it has achieved such an exemplary team. Attitude is significantly harder to train than education level – and it is the attitude to their work which will make it the quality Berkeley Rowe has become known for. With inter-department collaboration highly encouraged and a business that doesn’t believe in the strict segregation of ideas, it instead has built its departments on enhanced creativity though communication. Its best lawyers are thusly those who have thoroughly internalised these principles. Working at the top of their games, the experts of Berkeley Rowe are as proficient in client to client and inter-staff interactions as they are with legal minutia. They approach the challenges a client or staff member faces with empathy. Using this as the backbone to its work, Berkeley Rowe sets itself head and shoulders above its competition, offering the highest levels of legal competency from the best and easiest people to work with. Personality, it believes, is essential to delivery. As with any professional service, Covid-19 and the outbreak of the pandemic presented Berkeley Rowe with unforeseen challenges. The biggest hurdle that it faced during this time was further increasing the support it offered its staff. With law being an incredibly challenging job even without a global pandemic, it knew that its staff would need increased levels of assistance, and thus worked on offering specific mental health solutions for coping with the increased workload. This is something it managed with efficacy, allowing its staff to take the shifting paradigms and increasingly murky legal waters of the pandemic in their stride. Of course, alongside the challenges, it has also found opportunity in the ability to overcome many different problems from an academic perspective. In constantly learning new things, it ensures it never stagnates and always remains competitive. Furthermore, it wishes to continuously learn about new people. With a constant stream of people coming through its doors, all from different backgrounds and with different goals, it seeks to work with every one of them. In finding out what makes people tick and engaging them in discussions about their passions and interests as well as their problems, it makes itself truly bespoke and boutique. Its individually focused work has every client feeling valued and listened to, acting with the same professionalism and decorum towards everyone. In this way, it not only understands the case, but the people behind it. Another one of the core principles that guides this attitude is one that says law is not just intellectually challenging; it can also be fun and inspiring. Berkeley Rowe therefore cuts through the jargon and unnecessary complications to share this passion with its clientele. It hopes to lead by example in its industry with its approach to mental health, and positive client facing attitude. By heading up this push for reform, it hopes it will see many of its competitors adopting similar strategies, creating better environments for legal workers across the board. Currently, its approach is part of its value proposition, and this has allowed it to expand significantly, which has been extremely beneficial. However, by its growth, it hopes for a future of law where this isn’t a feature that makes a company stand out. It hopes that companies will adopt this person-centric and empathic way of working as a new industry standard, continuing its work until this is achieved. As for its own expansion, it will be looking to expand further into the Middle East and Singapore. Furthermore, it will be funnelling more effort into becoming the leader in the Economics of Mutuality and Impact Investment. With a busy future ahead and a strong foundation supporting it, Berkeley Rowe is looking forward to seeing where its positive impact will take both it and its industry next. Company: Berkeley Rowe London Contact: Marc Da Costa Website: https://www.berkeleyrowe.com/