Inspiring Women Awards & Hall Brown Family Law: The Next Generation of Legal Talent
Hall Brown is an award-winning boutique family law firm. They launched their family law business back in 2016, choosing to set up base in the heart of Manchester. The co-founders wanted to do things differently and become known as the best family law provider in the North West, and in each of their office locations, which now also include London, Sheffield, Leeds and Birmingham.
Similar to the Inspiring Women Awards, supporting women in business and the community is incredibly important to Hall Brown.
“The Inspiring Women Awards have promoted the achievements of hundreds of women who live or work in the North West and North Wales for over 30 years now. At the heart of what they do, is this desire to continue finding, recognising and championing inspirational women, which is something we’re incredibly passionate about at Hall Brown, having built a team of highly successful, inspirational and remarkable women in the company ourselves. Claire Reid, Partner at Hall Brown Family Law.
“We recently awarded training contracts to six young female “home-grown” talents, as well as recruiting a trainee legal executive, all of whom have been rewarded for their impressive work since joining our award-winning firm.
“Last month we funded and hosted a “Women’s career development course” for the firm’s leaders of the future. The purpose being to better understand the context for women leaders in law and relate to individual situations, as well as understand the business case for ‘positive action’ for firms like Hall Brown who want to benefit from the value that diverse talent brings.
“While the context for women in business is changing, given that there is now a greater understanding of the value of diverse teams, research still shows that women continue to face a number of different influences over their career progression when compared to their male colleagues i.e., factors which influence representation of women in senior roles.
“The course shone a light on this, creating a catalyst and discussion forum for topics such as self-awareness especially in light of ‘gender culture’, appreciation of strengths, how to create a consistently positive impact via enhanced communication, awareness of critical success factors, development of working relationships and strategies, and setting realistic and achievable personal and professional goals.
“Having a diverse and open culture is at the core of Hall Brown’s values. It fuels our creativity and makes us a more fun and dynamic environment to be part of. That’s why we have an active commitment to inclusion and diversity. We want to be able to attract, develop and retain the very best talent, and recognise that an integrated approach to diversity and talent management is a key enabler of that.
“We received an overwhelming response to the course and incredibly positive feedback. It was also a great opportunity for team building and self-reflection.”
Hall Brown continue to work with universities and younger female recruits to support them with work experience and growth opportunities within the legal community. The firm welcomed Bisma and Cedric for work experience last year. They had been awarded challenge winners of the ULAW’s ‘Legal Apprentice Challenge’ and as part of this challenge they had to present three proposals on how to attract diverse talent and promote an inclusive culture.
“We are sponsoring the inspiring young woman (aged 16-25yr) category, which is a perfect fit for us, as we employ a number of young women, who too are achieving great things.”
Bisma said: “I feel so grateful that law firms are willing to change to promote more diversity. Being from an ethnic minority background, I felt honoured to be part of this and to be heard. My time at Hall Brown has been amazing. I have met a great group of people, and learnt some valuable skills and insight, such as the importance of strong communication.”
Hall Brown also has a dynamic and vast Training and Development programme in place to guide and support young talent throughout the organisation. Most recently Emma Whitehead completed her training programme with us and went on to become a qualified solicitor. Emma now supports the young lawyers of the future by working with the University of Law’s mentoring scheme to mentor law undergrad students. This is just one of many success stories within the firm.
Claire added: “We have worked with Jacqueline and sponsored IWA since 2019, when Hall Brown was relatively new to the market. Since then, we have flourished into a UK-wide business with offices throughout the UK and have been delighted to witness the achievements of so many incredible women celebrated through the awards.
Hall Brown’s work extends to all aspects of family law including, divorce and civil partnership dissolutions, financial settlements, issues relating to children, unmarried couples and cohabitation issues, pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements, mediation, prioritisation of children’s well-being and domestic abuse cases. The firm specialises in providing advice and support to individuals with family law issues and is recognised as a top band in both Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners. They have built a strong reputation within the legal community and beyond and are now a well-established national business listed by the Times newspaper as one of the country’s top 200 law firms (all disciplines) and ranked by Best Companies as one of the top 5 best small companies to work for in the UK 2022.
Hall Brown Family Law – Providing award-winning, specialist family law advice.
0161 804 7000 | info@hallbrown.co.uk