Wise Counsel from 2000 to 2010…
Ten years of inspiring excellence
In the summer of the year 2000 Paul Gilbert met with his old friend and mentor Geoff Williams…It was over a pint and a ploughman's lunch at the Golden Heart pub in Nettleton Bottom, Gloucestershire where Paul described his ambition of running a company that would support the skills of in-house lawyers.
No such business existed at that time in the UK and it would have been easy to dismiss the idea as fanciful…”go and get a proper job” might have been good advice; instead Geoff simply encouraged Paul to pursue his idea with passion and energy and so a new business began.
The formal name of the new company was LawBook Consulting Limited, quickly shortened to LBC. The first board meeting took place in Alderley Edge with the support of a wonderful lady called Pat Wade who had been Paul’s assistant Company Secretary at United Assurance; soon afterwards Geoff Williams became LBC’s Chairman and then Dawn Jones (Paul’s PA at C&G) joined to run the office. In the very early days it was certainly a struggle to persuade in-house teams to take the proposition too seriously; but Paul soon secured a first significant contract with Abbey National where Paul reported to Abbey’s legal department operations manager, Lawrence Smith; four years after this first meeting Lawrence would join LBC (now known as LBC Wise Counsel) where he has formed an indispensable partnership with Paul.
In the years since 2000 LBC Wise Counsel has grown its business year on year fulfilling engagements across the country as well as in the US, in South Africa, in Germany, Switzerland, France, Monaco, Singapore, Sweden, Demark, Italy and Luxembourg.
There have been many milestones; in 2006 LBC Wise Counsel initiated a regional events programme that now sees networking events for in-house lawyers held in cities across the UK. Also in 2006 the inaugural LBCambridge programme ran at Queens’ College, Cambridge; this event now attracts lawyers from across the world and has become one of the most significant skills events for in-house lawyers anywhere in Europe supported by a dedicated Editorial Board of visionary talent...In addition LBClarity has been launched as an affordable software tool designed to help manage workflow and report risk specifically for in-house teams; while the LBClear Insights tool supports genuinely insightful user feedback…
It has been a decade of innovation and development and along the way we have been supported by associates and clients many of whom have become firm friends…Now in 2010 LBC Wise Counsel is set to launch a series of DVD workshops, to reinvigorate its coaching and mentoring capability, to enhance its offering to law firms and to develop the opportunity for more and more very capable people to come and join us in our work…Perhaps most exciting of all LBC Wise Counsel will take the LBCambridge programme to Johannesburg in what might just be the first in a series of opportunities to run this ground breaking event in a number of countries. Thank you for helping fulfil our ambitions…
…Look out for some special events later this year to mark the first decade and here’s to the next!