Bristol law firm TLT enjoyed double success at the Managing Partners' Forum (MPF) Awards for Management Excellence, winning the award for Best Managed National Firm and the award for Best Community Engagement.
Beating competition from professional services firms across Europe, TLT was named Best Managed National Firm for demonstrating “well thought-out strategies”, which are implemented through “effective collaboration across the management team” and have resulted in a “positive impact on the client experience”, “enthusiastic employees living the firm's values” and “sustainable commercial success”.
MPF’s executive director Paul Lemon said: “Despite difficult market conditions, TLT has successfully developed a UK-wide presence, managing the challenge of launching new operations in Northern Ireland and Scotland whilst strengthening client relations, winning new work and clients, and growing market share as a result.”
TLT managing partner David Pester said: “To be named as the Best Managed National Firm is a credit to everyone at TLT. This recognition is a further endorsement of our focus on delivering value to clients and how we put in place the right resources to achieve this.”
This latest recognition follows clients voting TLT best UK law firms for client satisfaction and employees voting TLT best law firm for the quality of its management in independent research conducted by Legal Week.
At last night's awards TLT also won the award for Best Community Engagement for its contribution and commitment to the Ablaze reading buddies and mentoring schemes. Through Ablaze, a registered charity established by the Bristol business community and local education authority, more than 150 TLT employees have volunteered their time supporting reading programmes for primary school children and mentoring programmes for secondary school children.
TLT has taken the scheme one step further, encouraging children to break out of the social expectations of their postcodes by inviting the children to visit TLT’s Bristol office to see where their reading buddy works, have lunch and a tour of the building. The intention is to broaden the children’s experience of their city and raise their career aspirations. In addition, TLT gives the charity a free base in its headquarters in the centre of Bristol, as well as the use of meeting space in its other UK offices as required. Such is the extent of the firm's involvement that TLT’s senior partner Robert Bourns was appointed a trustee of the charity.
Robert said: “There is real enthusiasm across the firm for this worthwhile scheme. Involvement gives TLT staff first-hand experience of the challenges facing others and alters perceptions of all concerned."
Ablaze CEO Roger Opie added: “Ablaze has derived enormous and consistent benefit from TLT since the charity was founded more than six years ago."
The MPF Awards are held in association with Harvard Business Review and the Financial Times. The MPF is a member-led professional body, dedicated to enhancing leadership.
Pictured: From the left, Michael Watkins, chairman of Genesis Advisers, Tom Ward, Robert Bourns and Sarah Watson of TLT, Stephen Howard, CEO at Business in the Community
