Profile: Richard Mathias, consultant to the legal sector

Richard Mathias is a former director of Law Firm Services, the company behind Minerva, and a consultant to the legal sector. He has spent almost 40 years working both within and for conveyancing firms across the country. In this Today’s Conveyancer profile, Richard shares his thoughts on digitalisation, upfront information and the future of conveyancing. 

What was your career path to your current role?

Having recently left LFS after 23 years as sales director I am just taking it easy whilst doing a bit of consultancy work for a Yorkshire law firm. Prior to LFS I had 12 years at two law firms, where I was responsible for introducing three case management systems and for the sales and marketing. I think that combined I have seen just about everything there is to see in the world of conveyancing.

What keeps you motivated?

Well right now it’s about trying to make a difference, to an industry (profession) that is notoriously slow at change. The facts are there for all to see.  The whole process has hardly changed in 50 years. All that has happened is layers of regulation, compliance and – to be frank – backside covering have been piled on conveyancers. Is it any wonder transaction times are now averaging 17 weeks when 15 years ago that figure was closer to 10 weeks?

Is digitalisation the answer?

Short answer NO – this might come as a surprise to many,  especially as I have had 20 years working for a firm that specialises in digital onboarding.

The cold hard facts are these. Unless the government wants to completely change the system then change is only going to come from within and there are simply not enough conveyancers to process the number of cases we have right now.

Will the government make a change? I seriously doubt it. Such a huge change to the housing market brings serious risk and will take several years to implement. Which government would want to take this on when there is a significant risk they won’t be in power in five years? This is what happened with HIPS. Labour introduced it in 2008 (having first floated it two or three years earlier) and the Tories scrapped it in 2011. No political party will want a repeat.

What can be done to improve conveyancing?

I become rather animated and frustrated by people from outside the sector who think this can all be solved by digitalisation. The number of column inches and meetings devoted to DPMSG, HBSG and OPDA defies belief. I am not being a luddite here, but I think these organisations are more about their own egos, commercial considerations and fanciful thinking than producing anything that can really make a difference.

Minerva is a software solution. We digitised the onboarding process. This is a real product by a real company that has saved hundreds of thousands of home movers and law firms hours of time on each transaction and makes a genuine difference. I have absolute respect for other similar businesses who are also working hard to give clients and conveyancers the most modern tools to help improve the process.

The real issue though is how to attract new people into conveyancing.  The answer to that is by paying better wages and managing workloads so as not to overwork the very conscientious conveyancing community any more than is absolutely necessary.

However, those salaries will need to be improved on the back of higher fees to clients. No point hand ringing here. The blame lies fairly and squarely with the vast majority of law firms who are simply not sales people. Very few sell based upon the quality of their service. Most firms give the job of giving quotes to the admin support, who spend as little time as possible taking details and sending email quotes. There is little or no sales training. This is why we end up with a race to the bottom where the client can only differentiate based on price.

Not only this, but most firms have zero capacity management. They take on work until fee earners scream, “No more!”. By this point it’s already too late, as those new cases will take 8-16 weeks to get to a point where the fee earners are really engaged in getting them to completion.

If firms only took on cases that kept their fee earners at an optimum productivity, then the whole process would be far better and estate agents would have far less to complain about. The problem is the lack of information for managing partners and heads of departments that leads to taking on too much work at too low a fee.

You can digitise all you want, but unless you sort the points above nothing will change.

What are your thoughts on upfront information?

This is something I am really passionate about. There is huge duplication between estate agents and law firms and this could easily be sorted but lawyers need to understand this is an opportunity to engage with local estate agents and help them and their clients.

If a seller instructs a conveyancer when the property is first marketed, if that firm then opens a file and does all the compliance, checks the title, creates replies to standard requisitions, does searches and in short makes the property contract ready – then there are huge time savings to be had.

This hasn’t happened because agents want zero barriers to putting a house on the market. However, with the right collaboration, education and training this can happen, and hopefully in the coming months we will see some high-profile examples that will become the standard bearers for the future.

What’s the best piece of advice you’d give to someone just starting out in conveyancing?

Work together with estate agents and don’t see them as the enemy or a necessary evil. Only by trusting each other can your deliver a quality service to your clients and deliver real change for everyone.

Today’s Conveyancer is for and about conveyancers, and we want to share your news, views and insight. If you’d like to feature in a future profile, email us at press@todaysconveyancer.co.uk with the word ‘Profile’ in the subject line and we’ll send you our questions to complete.