Bond Dickinson, the national law firm with a large office in Bristol, has been ranked among the UK’s top five legal firms for innovation.
The firms appears in the latest Best Legal Adviser Report for 2016-2017 published by online magazine Legal Week.
The report scores law firms across 15 categories including innovation, quality of legal advice, communication skills and commercial approach based on feedback from clients and in-house legal counsel. 
Bond Dickinson was ranked in the top five for both overall innovation and alternative low cost centres.
The report reveals that innovation in law firms has clearly become much more important to clients. In 2015 only 28% of those surveyed for the Best Legal Adviser Report said it was important whereas in 2016 this rose to 62%.
However, satisfaction with the innovation being delivered by law firms remains low compared to other areas such as billing practice or quality of service delivery.
Bond Dickinson head of innovation Nigel Emmerson, pictured, said: “The legal sector needs to embrace innovation in order to remain competitive, relevant and progressive.
“Our innovation group has been established to help identify potential innovation opportunities and coordinate initiatives and projects across the firm. We’re delighted to be recognised for our innovation – but we need to keep challenging ourselves to think differently about how we deliver our service to clients.
“We have also seen really positive results from projects where we have collaborated with clients such as AIG where document automation has brought big benefits to the in-house legal team. We are also learning from collaboration on innovation with our US partner Womble Carlyle which is hugely beneficial to both firms.”
Legal Week received responses from clients from more than 250 law firms for the Best Legal Adviser Report.
Bond Dickinson received its highest scores in communication and responsiveness; quality of service delivered; and the overall relationship the firm has with its clients – as well as ranking highly against its competitors for innovation.
