Law firm wins accolade

A law firm in Shropshire is celebrating after winning a prestigious national training and recruitment award.

Lanyon Bowdler picked up the Best Trainer award in the Small Firm category at a ceremony held in London involving more than 60 of the country's top law firms.

The LawCareers.Net Training & Recruitment Awards are designed to identify those firms who give their employees a flying start in the legal profession, starting with the recruitment process and then helping to support and nurture as careers progress.

Lanyon Bowdler’s award was one of 18 presented on the night to a range of law firms dedicated to recruitment, training, work placement and lecturing.

Colin Spanner, head of the family law team and training partner with Lanyon Bowdler, said the firm was delighted to be recognised with a national award.

“This is a great honour for us and demonstrates how committed we are to the training process,” he said. “We believe in giving our young employees the best possible start on what we hope will be a long and successful career.

“Investing in young talent is very important and at Lanyon Bowdler we have half a dozen trainees working with us at any one time - we are looking to expand this number moving forward.

“They all get a good insight into what we do by experiencing the different and varied departments within the firm, and it is always satisfying to see them succeed, qualify and go on to make their mark in the legal profession.”

The LawCareers.Net awards are in their 14th year and Lanyon Bowdler was the only Shropshire law firm to be nominated for an award this year.

Matthew Broadbent, business development director of LawCareers.Net, said: “The awards are a real proving ground.

“With more than 2,000 trainees and newly qualified solicitors surveyed, the awards paint a truly accurate picture of which firms do a great job in recruitment and training.

“All nominees should be congratulated as the competition across every category is fierce.”

Colin said Lanyon Bowdler was particularly proud because the award followed feedback from trainees and newly qualified lawyers who had been through the firm’s training programme.

“It is their comments about our firm that saw us shortlisted and ultimately led to us winning the award,” he said.

“It is pleasing for us to think the experience obtained from our legal team has been so valuable they felt able to pass extremely favourable comments on in the survey.”

Picture: Colin Spanner and Kay Kelly