Charles Metherell is a partner responsible for regulatory and advisory work for Solicitors. He advises law firms and works with Banks, Private Equity, Accountants and Insolvency Practitioners in all matters relating to their activity in the legal sector.
Charles practiced as a litigation and regulatory partner in large regional law firms and spent many years acting for the SRA dealing with investigations and interventions. In 2011 he came out of private practice and set up a legal management consultancy business, becoming an accredited member of the Institute for Turnaround and taking on a variety of projects for a wide range of law firms, advising on all aspects of strategy and operations. Before joining JMW Charles was taking on interim CEO and COO roles in law firms, as well as interim head of HR and Marketing positions. Charles’ particular expertise is in the transformation and process improvement of firms requiring strategic input, practical and decisive operational support, managing and advising on their interface with the SRA, their funders and insurers as well as dealing with people and partnership issue arising.
Examples of Charles’ experience:
- General law firm management as interim CEO and COO – fully involved in the management of firms to improve process and performance, supporting firm wide initiatives and implementing best practice through operational project management.
- Restructuring law firms, involving advising on governance and composition of boards, HODs and departments
- Financial Management – close working relationships with existing FDs, FCs and active involvement in all aspects of budgeting and forecasting, financial hygiene, chargeable hours, billing, credit control, lock up, wip management and profitability exercises. Preparation and delivery of financial reports and statistics, presentation and implementation of findings.
- People Management – close working relationships with existing HR directors, acting as interim head of HR, dealing with all relevant records, policies and procedures, including SRA related mandatory training courses; dealing with under performance issues and related improvement initiatives including grievance process, dealing with dismissals, running redundancy programmes, implementing and rolling out partner and firm-wide appraisal process and subsequent development programmes and training.
- All aspects of Risk Management and regulation / compliance, acting as interim head of Risk; advising on; AML, Financial Crime, Conflict, SRA issues and investigations, COLP and COFA support including Code and SAR issues, PII support [ annual application and claims and complaints ]
- Partner management – running appraisal process, performance management including succession planning and mentoring
- Support Staff management- firm-wide review of process and operation leading to more cost effective and streamlined service
- Disposal of teams and practice areas
- Project managing recruitment, acquisitions and bolt on, post merger implementation
- Business strategy – working with boards to develop strategic plan and with departments to develop departmental plans in the light of fundamental changes to the delivery of legal services. Facilitating partner away days to develop strategy, running and chairing board and partner meetings.
- Administration and facilities management – responsibility for the day to day running of knowledge management and administration teams including departmental and office moves, property issues and practical insurance, purchase and leasing issues in accordance with planned cost strategy;
- Stakeholder management – close working relationships with Banks, Insurers and Private Equity and Accountants/Insolvency Practitioners in particular regarding SRA issues
- Marketing and business development – acting as interim head of Marketing working with internal and external business development and PR resource, rebranding, introduction and running of CRM programmes and developing sector strategies. Aligning marketing and business development plans to strategy to build viable and sustainable business. Carrying out independent client visits for feedback