Slater & Gordon UK Progress and Customer Experience

The UK chief executive of Slater & Gordon (S&G), Ken Fowlie, has this week said that in order for the restructured company to be successful it will need to become ‘more flexible, faster and less expensive’, and give clients more control.[i]

Fowlie, speaking at the Legal Futures Innovation Conference, stated that the challenge would be trying to achieve this whilst rebuilding the firm following its recent restructuring and financial difficulties.  The key he said would come in claimants and defendants becoming less ‘adversarial’ with each other once claims were accepted, as this caused delays and ‘too much frictional cost’. Instead, more co-operation was needed.

Elsewhere this month, at S&G’s AGM, Andrew Grech, Chief Executive, announced that the firm has seen an encouraging start to the current financial year. He said that the firm’s re-organisation, was largely complete, with a 16% reduction in headcount that had delivered ‘immediate financial benefits’.

Giving a first quarter trading update, Mr Grech said UK earnings were ‘slightly ahead of budget’ due to over-performance by its serious and specialised personal injury practice.

However he did indicate his disappointment at ‘the lack of progress with bulk settlements in the noise-induced hearing loss portfolio’ of cases it bought from Quindell (these were the main cause of S&Gs stock price tumble earlier this year as we reported in edition 120 of BC Disease News).