Awards

STEP – August 2021

Natal­ie Roger­son was grant­ed the des­ig­na­tion in August 2021 with dis­tinc­tion and helps to ensure that the depart­ment works to STEP standards. 

STEP is the glob­al pro­fes­sion­al asso­ci­a­tion for prac­ti­tion­ers who spe­cialise in fam­i­ly inher­i­tance and suc­ces­sion plan­ning. We work to improve pub­lic under­stand­ing of the issues fam­i­lies face in this area and pro­mote edu­ca­tion and high pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards among our members. 

‘TEP’ stands for Trust and Estate Prac­ti­tion­er, and is the des­ig­na­tion giv­en to full mem­bers of STEP. To become a TEP, prac­ti­tion­ers must have a com­bi­na­tion of spe­cial­ist qual­i­fi­ca­tions and expe­ri­ence, includ­ing sig­nif­i­cant involve­ment at a spe­cial­ist lev­el with inher­i­tance and suc­ces­sion planning. 

TEPs are recog­nised experts in their field, with proven qual­i­fi­ca­tions and expe­ri­ence. By join­ing STEP and main­tain­ing their mem­ber­ship they have also shown sig­nif­i­cant com­mit­ment to their con­tin­ued pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment in this spe­cial­ist area.

Learn more about the ben­e­fits of using a STEP accred­it­ed prac­tice on the STEP web­site at: https://​www​.step​.org/​p​r​o​f​e​s​s​i​o​n​a​l​-​s​t​a​n​dards

STEP – April 2017

Nico­la Lloyd was grant­ed the des­ig­na­tion in April 2017 and ensures that the depart­ment works to STEP standards.

STEP is the glob­al pro­fes­sion­al asso­ci­a­tion for prac­ti­tion­ers who spe­cialise in fam­i­ly inher­i­tance and suc­ces­sion plan­ning. We work to improve pub­lic under­stand­ing of the issues fam­i­lies face in this area and pro­mote edu­ca­tion and high pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards among our members.

‘TEP’ stands for Trust and Estate Prac­ti­tion­er, and is the des­ig­na­tion giv­en to full mem­bers of STEP. To become a TEP, prac­ti­tion­ers must have a com­bi­na­tion of spe­cial­ist qual­i­fi­ca­tions and expe­ri­ence, includ­ing sig­nif­i­cant involve­ment at a spe­cial­ist lev­el with inher­i­tance and suc­ces­sion planning.

TEPs are recog­nised experts in their field, with proven qual­i­fi­ca­tions and expe­ri­ence. By join­ing STEP and main­tain­ing their mem­ber­ship they have also shown sig­nif­i­cant com­mit­ment to their con­tin­ued pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment in this spe­cial­ist area.

WIQS – Sep­tem­ber 2016

We are delight­ed to be an accred­it­ed mem­ber of the Law Society’s Wills and Inher­i­tance Qual­i­ty Scheme (WIQS). This shows that we fol­low best prac­tice pro­ce­dures to meet the high­est stan­dards of tech­ni­cal exper­tise and client ser­vice in pro­vid­ing tai­lored Wills and Pro­bate advice to consumers.

• We will not pres­sure you into buy­ing more com­plex advice that is not in your best interests.
• Our ded­i­cat­ed Wills and Pro­bate ser­vice is tai­lored to your needs. We will explain the process, options, costs and like­ly timescales.
• We will keep you up-to-date using your pre­ferred method of communication.
• Accred­it­ed Solic­i­tors and oth­er staff com­plete manda­to­ry train­ing on the WIQS stan­dard and show com­pli­ance through annu­al re-accred­i­ta­tion and ongo­ing enforce­ment checks by the Law Society.

Learn more about the ben­e­fits of using a WIQS accred­it­ed prac­tice on the Law Society’s web­site at: www​.law​so​ci​ety​.org​.uk/​A​b​o​u​tWIQS

Law Soci­ety Excel­lence Awards 2012 — Excel­lence in Con­veyanc­ing Practice

This award is open to Law Soci­ety Con­veyanc­ing Qual­i­ty Scheme (CQS) mem­bers only, which implies entrants as Con­veyanc­ing lead­ers, as firms under­go rig­or­ous assess­ment by the Law Soci­ety, com­pul­so­ry train­ing, self-report­ing, ran­dom audits and annu­al reviews in order to main­tain CQS status.

Award entrants should show how they have used the CQS brand and val­ues to devel­op their busi­ness, includ­ing how they have used it to enhance the rep­u­ta­tion of the prac­tice and to raise stan­dards of client care and ser­vice, and how they have embed­ded the CQS process­es and man­aged and nec­es­sary changes in their busi­ness mod­el or department.

The judges not­ed that JBGass have suc­cess­ful­ly used CQS to focus on risk, and in doing so, impressed clients, lenders and the firm’s insur­er stat­ing ​‘the results have been reduced indem­ni­ty insur­ance, increased client sat­is­fac­tion, new mort­gage lender pan­el posi­tions and new lines of client business.’

Law Soci­ety Excel­lence Awards 2011 — Lex­cel Award for Prac­tice Management

The Law Soci­ety is the rep­re­sen­ta­tive body for more than 130,000 Solic­i­tors, qual­i­fied in Eng­land and Wales, prac­tis­ing both at home and across the globe. The Law Soci­ety Excel­lence Awards are a firm­ly estab­lished high­light in the legal cal­en­dar, and pro­vide a wel­come oppor­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate all that is great about the pro­fes­sion and to demon­strate that Lawyers con­tin­ue to inno­vate and to deliv­er work of the high­est quality.

JBGass were short­list­ed for the Lex­cel Award for Prac­tice Man­age­ment. The Lex­cel Award rewards excel­lence in prac­tice man­age­ment and ser­vice deliv­ery from prac­tices that have suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed the Lex­cel stan­dard. Lex­cel is the Law Society’s prac­tice man­age­ment stan­dard, which is only award­ed to Solic­i­tors who meet the high­est man­age­ment and cus­tomer care stan­dards, and is referred to as ​‘The Qual­i­ty Mark for Solic­i­tors’. The judges looked for prac­tices that have effec­tive­ly incor­po­rat­ed the Lex­cel frame­work into their busi­ness strate­gies to dri­ve con­tin­u­ous improvement.

The judges not­ed that instead of just plan­ning to obtain Lex­cel accred­i­ta­tion, JBGass decid­ed to use Lex­cel as the cat­a­lyst to trans­form their firm. This jour­ney has tak­en them from a his­toric sole prac­ti­tion­er firm to a mod­ern lim­it­ed com­pa­ny law firm. Both client and staff are feel­ing the ben­e­fits, report­ing sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments across the firm.

CQS — August 2011

The Con­veyanc­ing Qual­i­ty Scheme (CQS) is the Law Society’s qual­i­ty stan­dard for Res­i­den­tial Con­veyanc­ing. Achieve­ment of mem­ber­ship will estab­lish a lev­el of cred­i­bil­i­ty for mem­ber firms with stake­hold­ers (reg­u­la­tors, lenders, insur­ers and clients) based upon:

• The integri­ty of the Senior Respon­si­ble Offi­cer and oth­er staff.
• The firm’s adher­ence to good prac­tice man­age­ment standards.
• Adher­ence to pru­dent and effi­cient Con­veyanc­ing pro­ce­dures through the scheme protocol.

JBGass under­went rig­or­ous assess­ment by the Law Soci­ety, com­pul­so­ry train­ing, self report­ing, ran­dom audits and annu­al reviews in order to main­tain CQS sta­tus. It is open only to mem­bers of the Law Soci­ety who meet the demand­ing stan­dards set by the scheme and has the sup­port of the Coun­cil of Mort­gage Lenders, the Build­ing Soci­eties Asso­ci­a­tion, Legal Ombuds­man and the Asso­ci­a­tion of British Insurers.

Lex­cel — April 2010

Lex­cel is the Law Society’s prac­tice man­age­ment stan­dard. The Lex­cel prac­tice man­age­ment stan­dard is only award­ed to Solic­i­tors who meet the high­est man­age­ment and cus­tomer care stan­dards and is referred to as ​‘The Qual­i­ty Mark for Solic­i­tors’. Lex­cel accred­it­ed prac­tices under­go rig­or­ous inde­pen­dent assess­ment every year to ensure they meet required stan­dards of excel­lence in areas such as client care, case man­age­ment and risk management.

Lex­cel firms make sure they:

• Under­stand what you expect
• Pro­vide a con­sis­tent lev­el of service
• Deliv­er what you expect

Lex­cel firms are always look­ing for ways of improv­ing their client ser­vice. They ask clients for their views and make changes accordingly.

Char­tered Insti­tute of Mar­ket­ing Excel­lence Awards 2009 — Pro­fes­sion­al Services

The world’s largest organ­i­sa­tion for pro­fes­sion­al mar­keters, the CIM devel­ops and sets mar­ket­ing indus­try stan­dards, and this year marks its cen­te­nary. The Mar­ket­ing Excel­lence Awards are indus­try sec­tor based, eli­gi­ble to indi­vid­u­als and teams, and open to all mar­ket­ing projects.

JBGass were short­list­ed in the Pro­fes­sion­al Ser­vices cat­e­go­ry which con­tained 5 inter­na­tion­al firms, 4 of which have been named in the Top 50 of the Busi­ness Super­brands sur­vey 2010, with Ernst & Young tak­ing the high­est posi­tion at 21.

JBGass devel­oped an approach to sup­port­ing house sales using Home Infor­ma­tion Packs (HIPs). HIPs have been wide­ly crit­i­cised by the prop­er­ty mar­ket, but JBGass has devel­oped HIPs of a high stan­dard at a low price, which has suc­ceed­ed in retain­ing old clients, attract­ing new ones and devel­op­ing prof­itable rela­tion­ships with local Estate agents.

David Thorp, Direc­tor of Research and Pro­fes­sion­al Devel­op­ment at The Char­tered Insti­tute of Mar­ket­ing said, ​“The Mar­ket­ing Excel­lence Awards have been espe­cial­ly cre­at­ed to high­light the fun­da­men­tal role mar­ket­ing plays, through­out both busi­ness and the pub­lic sec­tor, and to cel­e­brate the best mar­ket­ing achieve­ments across many indus­try sec­tors. It recog­nis­es out­stand­ing mar­ket­ing from UK organ­i­sa­tions, both large and small.

The entrants demon­strat­ed the inno­va­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty need­ed to demon­strate good mar­ket­ing prac­tice and even inno­va­tion, dur­ing the cur­rent finan­cial down­turn. The diver­si­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty of the entries result­ed in much delib­er­a­tion by the judg­ing teams to judge and mark the wor­thy short list.”

The pro­fes­sion­al Ser­vices cat­e­go­ry win­ner was Ernst & Young, who was also won the over­all President’s Award.

Law Soci­ety Excel­lence Awards 2009 — Mar­ket­ing & Busi­ness Development

JBGass were win­ners in the cat­e­go­ry of Mar­ket­ing & Busi­ness Devel­op­ment. The judges were impressed by JBGass’ com­mit­ment to devel­op­ing an approach to sup­port­ing house sales includ­ing a Home Infor­ma­tion Pack of a high stan­dard at a low price, which has suc­ceed­ed in retain­ing old clients, attract­ing new ones and devel­op­ing prof­itable rela­tion­ships with local Estate agents.

The judges described the entry as ​“exhibit­ing the true art of exe­cut­ing a well-planned and well-researched strat­e­gy to build a ser­vice which suc­ceed­ed in mark­ing them apart from their competitors.”

Robert Hes­lett, Law Soci­ety Pres­i­dent said, ​“The stan­dard of entries received for the third annu­al excel­lence awards has been superb and reflects the high lev­el of inno­va­tion that exists across the legal pro­fes­sion. The process of select­ing the short­list was exten­sive due to the vast num­ber of entries this year.

These win­ners have made the pro­mo­tion of best prac­tice an inte­gral part of their work. These awards are part of the Law Society’s com­mit­ment to pro­mot­ing excel­lence in legal services.”

Law Soci­ety Excel­lence Awards 2008 — Excel­lence in Client Service

JBGass Solic­i­tors were short­list­ed for the LCS Award for Excel­lence in Client Ser­vice. The award high­lights ​‘excel­lence in client care and inno­v­a­tive approach­es to main­tain­ing and devel­op­ing client-focused services’.

The judges short­list­ed JBGass on the basis that they have demon­strat­ed a lead­ing edge com­mit­ment to client care and exam­ples of real efforts in going the extra mile for a diverse range of clients.

The award short­list­ing was the result of receiv­ing excel­lent client feed­back over the last 8 months. Con­veyanc­ing clients were sent a feed­back ques­tion­naire on com­ple­tion, to gath­er feed­back on sev­er­al aspects of the ser­vice pro­vid­ed; val­ue, report, cor­re­spon­dence, com­par­i­son to oth­er firms, friend­li­ness and over­all rat­ing. Using a scale of 1 for poor and 5 for excel­lent, JBGass scored ​‘very good’ (4.23) or bet­ter in all areas, and have seen score increas­es across all categories.

The entry also high­light­ed a move of office to pro­vide easy access and free park­ing for clients, as well as a heavy invest­ment in E‑Conveyancing to com­ple­ment exist­ing cor­re­spon­dence channels.