As we move into the last month of 2020, I’m sure we’ll all be looking back on the ups, the downs and the lessons learnt in what turned out to be an extremely challenging time. I became Managing Director of the Jackson Lees Group shortly before lockdown, and it’s safe to say this has been an ‘interesting’ first year on the job!
Like most businesses, the pandemic has profoundly affected the way we operate. Against that challenging backdrop, I’m incredibly grateful to all our people and am impressed by how rapidly they continue to adapt to an ever evolving situation. Thanks to their efforts we continue to make a positive difference to our clients, by seamlessly adopting new technologies and creating new systems, including some highly Covid-secure ways of working.
A silver lining to the ongoing challenge of remaining Covid-secure is that we’ve actually been handed an unprecedented opportunity to reconsider our overall approach to both our workplaces and the benefits that working remotely brings to our clients and our people.
So, as we look forward to 2021, we’re feeling immensely positive about the year ahead. We have decided to continue our agile working evolution by relocating our teams based at Hamilton Square & Dale Street into new ‘hubs’ at our Walker House and Hoylake work-places. These hubs are designed to allow integrated teams to better balance remote and office working.
It’s worth pausing for a second to reflect on the part that Dale Street and Hamilton Square have played in our firm’s history.
Dale Street has been a bastion for the protection of civil liberties, a centre for the ongoing fight for families looking to find sanctuary in the UK and our headquarters for campaigning for access to justice since the 1970s. This work will continue, unabated, from our Walker House office. Meanwhile, Hamilton Square has been a place of legal support and advice since 1889, with our medical negligence, court of protection, commercial property, wills and family law teams having served and protected families & vulnerable individuals through the years. Their vital work will continue from our Heswall, Hoylake and Walker House offices.
Our aim is to counter the ongoing uncertainty in the outside world, by consolidating and framing our business locations as bastions of support & service. Places that our clients can rely on and that are filled with people that support not just clients but each other.
Both I & the Jackson Lees Group are excited to see what the future holds as the world settles down to its new normal. I’m especially looking forward to welcoming our teams into to their new work-homes to continue the incredible work they do in making a positive difference to clients across Liverpool, the North West and further afield.
Esther