Apologies for the bad punning but 15 years of law firm releases, you have to get pleasure where you can.
Lawyers Weekly Australia report
A team of four directors has unveiled a new firm, with the intention of breaking free from the “old-school” law firm model.
Velocity Legal has been launched by managing director John Storey and directors Andrew Henshaw, Rajan Verma and Scott McKenzie with the hope of offering a different service to that already available within the legal marketplace.
“We decided to launch Velocity Legal because we wanted to do things differently. We wanted to break free from the ‘old-school’ law firm model,” said Mr Henshaw.
“For us, this meant: fixed fees for all work to give clients certainty; not being tied to our desks (because we don’t have personal budgets); meeting at our clients’ offices rather than our boardrooms whenever possible; being outcome-focused (i.e. solving our clients’ problems) not input-focused (no time recording and no billable units); genuinely sharing relationships between our directors (‘no silos’); [and] being a firm dedicated to private enterprise, not just another ‘add-on’ service.”
Velocity Legal has an office located at 367 Collins Street in Melbourne. However, Mr Henshaw noted that many of the firm’s clients and their other advisers have their offices outside the CBD.
“We travel as much as possible to our clients, and their advisers’ premises are outside of the city. We do not need to be the centre of attention,” he said.
Initially, Velocity Legal will target tax and commercial matters for private enterprise, according to Mr Henshaw.
“In particular tax advice, tax disputes, trusts, sale or purchase of a business, business structuring and restructuring, business succession, estate planning, co-owned business advice and property development,” he said.
“Any growth in our services will be to enhance our ability to service private enterprise.”
Mr Henshaw reinforced that Velocity’s key point of difference is its clients remain at the forefront of all business-related decisions.
“We’ve listened to our clients. We deliver top-quality legal advice. However, we have taken away all the things that clients hate about lawyers, for example, lack of transparency on fees, slow response times, lack of business awareness [and] internal rather than external focus,” he said.
“Velocity Legal’s biggest goal for the next 12 months is to give our clients great service. We’ll achieve that if all of our clients become ambassadors of Velocity Legal.”
