AIIC Group (“AIIC”), the holding company behind leading independent law firm Taylor Rose, announced that it is relaunching FDR Law as a property-focused legal services business.
The company, which will operate under the legal consultancy model, will focus on property law including sales, purchases, remortgages and transfer of equities as well as new build, shared ownership, first registrations and auctions.
FDR Law paused trading in late 2022 in order to carry out an IT transformation, during which time its clients and around 30 staff were transferred over to Taylor Rose, its sister company. The company received SRA approval to change the legal entity of the firm to a limited company rather than a partnership in October 2023.
FDR Law relaunches with a new cloud-based case management system that has been developed with a sharp focus on the needs of a modern-day property lawyer.
The Nebulaw system, built on the Salesforce platform with proven uptime of over 99.9 per cent, is market-leading in terms of stability and reliability. FDR has tailored the platform for its property law specialism, with automated workflows designed with compliance in mind, to help fee earners seamlessly complete conflict checks, risk assessments and identity checks with ease.
The system can be accessed on any device including a mobile phone to maximise flexibility for fee earners. By housing all the data in one place, the system aids ease and productivity for consultants as well as central support departments such as supervision, audit, complaint handling and data protection.
Gina Padmore has been named as the company’s new CEO. Gina was formerly FDR Law’s Head of Residential Property, and prior to that was Head of Legal at Taylor Rose, the second largest provider of residential conveyancing services in the UK.
Gina Padmore, CEO, FDR Law, commented: “We want to be the first-choice brand for consultant property lawyers, so we’ve taken a lot of care to ensure that when we relaunched, we were technologically ready to give our consultants the best possible experience. We’ve worked hard to ensure that everything that a property lawyer requires is viewed under one pane of glass so there is no need for disparate systems for finance, searches, ID checks, property registrations or document management.
“The FDR Law brand has long rich history but we are re-creating it for the future of legal services, with the technology and central services that will help our consultants thrive and provide the best possible service.”
The legal consultant business model offers lawyers a central service platform, brand and management infrastructure from which to operate, in return for a percentage of the lawyer’s revenue. The lawyers themselves are self-employed consultants, who retain an average of 70 per cent of their billings, with the remainder taken by the consultancy firm.
Consultants at FDR will enjoy multiple benefits, including marketing support, a recognised brand, sophisticated IT support and systems, professional indemnity insurance and SRA supervision, as well as the lower operating costs of home working.
Earlier this year, AIIC was named as the fastest growing legal and accounting services in Europe, according to the FT 1000 list of Europe’s fastest-growing companies by the Financial Times (“FT”). This is the second consecutive year it has appeared in the rankings.
Adrian Jaggard, CEO of AIIC Group, commented: “We know the factors that are key to driving excellence and fast-growth with a consultancy-based business, and the team have been working hard behind the scenes to put the right building blocks in place to support FDR’s relaunch. I’m confident that we have the ambition, the team, and the infrastructure in place to make the new FDR Law a huge success.”