Firm was established in 1821 and has offices in Liverpool, Runcorn and Warrington and taken on an extra 16 staff members over the past year. Tony McDonough reports

Law firm Bell Lamb and Joynson (BLJ) Solicitors has revealed the best-ever results in its near 200-year history with annual turnover soaring by 28% almost £2.1m.

And the firm, which was established in 1821 and has offices in Liverpool, Runcorn and Warrington, also taken on an extra 16 staff members during the 12 month period and says it will be employing 52 people by 2020.

Managing Partner Mike Leeman credits the company’s digital approach for contributing to recent achievements, with the ability to streamline processes for both staff and clients improving the quality of services across all three branches. 

He explained: “We recently came to the end of our business year and reflecting on our success in the past 12 months is incredibly rewarding and a real testament to the work of the entire team across all of our departments.

“In 2018, we set ourselves quite ambitious targets in terms of company growth and we’re pleased to say that we have exceeded those significantly.

“In 2016, we began to digitalise the business, investing heavily into new systems that would aid communication both internally and client facing and it’s now that we are starting to see the financial benefits from this strategic operational change.

“Our conveyancing and criminal departments are among our best performing areas, up by 55% and 26% respectively in terms of the volume of cases. We’re pleased to say that we’re bucking industry trends and we hope to see other firms follow suit by adopting a more modern and tech-savvy approach to legal services.”

BLJ’s efforts were recently recognised in the national Eclipse Proclaim Modern Law Conveyancing Awards where it picked up the accolade for ‘Customer Care’. This year its were also awarded the Criminal Law Award at the Liverpool Law Society’s Legal Awards.

Mr Leeman added: “We hope to see this momentum continue and look forward to what the next 12 months has in store for the sector, which we believe will be heavily shaped by the introduction of technology across more law firms locally and regionally.”