Page 13 - DWF Annual Report 2017

“We have done Reflecting on a decade ambition to fulfil their commercial needs
– coupled with a big dose of innovation
well this year and I joined DWF as Chairman in 2007, when and a sprinkling of good luck!
the business had three offices across the

achieved our goals.” North West of England, with circa 800 I am very proud to be associated with
employees and turnover in the region of
DWF, all its partners and its people, and
£40m. Ten years on, we will see turnover particularly the charismatic Andrew
well in excess of £200m next year, with Leaitherland. What better time to hand
11 offices within the UK, 14 international over the reins and to whom better than
offices and over 2,700 people globally. Sir Nigel Knowles. I wish them all good
Removing the mystique This has been achieved through hard fortune and believe I am leaving the role
of legal services work, commitment and unstinted in excellent hands. I look forward to
professionalism. There has also been, working with them for another year as
This year we have experienced the collectively, a great willingness to listen a non-Executive Board Member.
continued changing expectations and to our clients and an unwavering
attitudes of our clients. Clients are ever
increasingly more sophisticated in the
expectations of their professional
advisers. This is not only driven by a need “There has also been, collectively,
for cost-savings but also clients’ desire
for more sophisticated management a great willingness to listen to our
reporting of the process and progress
of their legal matters and their need for clients and an unwavering ambition
transparency in how we deliver. This has
enhanced our commitment to doing
things differently to achieve to fulfil their commercial needs.”
comprehensive services for them.

Expansion trail
We also continued our strategic expansion
this year, with the acquisition of C&H
Jefferson in Belfast and Fox Hartley in
Bristol, along with the launch of our
inaugural French office in Paris. We also
acquired Triton Global, which was a
standout development of the year. It was
a great opportunity to preserve the
innovative Triton business and allowed us
to expand our legal professional indemnity
offering, embolden our claims handling
capabilities and, importantly, gave us new
offices in Australia, Canada and the USA.

We also were able to acquire Triton’s
technology subsidiary, which has enabled
us to provide a more comprehensive
range of software solutions for our
clients. Coupled with the acquisition of
Triton’s claims handling business, we
were able to amalgamate these additional
services into our growing Connected
Services offering. It has been a genuinely
holistic partnership that has strengthened
what we already had in place.

Although the technical integration of
various mergers has been difficult at
times, we have really become more
astute and responsive to the needs of
those joining our business. This to a large
extent has been achieved by all our
people, but in particular a number of our
central services teams.

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