Member benefits grow

With this issue of the Journal you should find a booklet giving details of all the current members of the Society’s Members’ Benefit Scheme. Now in its third year, the number of member businesses offering specially tailored services and/or deals at preferential rates is up by over a third since this time last year, from 18 to 25.

Set up to offer members of the Society a range of services and products that provide relevant and important support to legal businesses, the scheme is attracting an increasing range and choice of companies keen to do business with the legal profession.

New providers since last year include Moneypenny and Call Care (call handling), 9dots consulting and Legal TX (business communication), Bank of Scotland Merchant Services (card acceptance solutions), Expd8 (IT), Arnold Clark Vehicle Management, Fulcrum Insured Employee Benefits, Westfield Health (health insurance) and AON (car insurance).

There are now 10 different categories covering aspects of your business or personal life: business support and communication, business financial, business utilities, IT, cars and vehicles, conveyancing services, funeral plans, personal finance, employee benefits and insurance and clothing: corporate discounts.

Charlotta Cederqvist, the Society’s business development manager, says that it’s the “lifestyle” services that are among the most popular with solicitors: Mercedes for cars and TM Lewin for clothing, as well as the Scottish Widows Professional Mortgage, which enables practising solicitors and trainees to borrow up to 90% of value on a loan with flexible payment features.

A growing number of companies in the area of office support are however applying to join the scheme, such as Moneypenny and Call Care, both of which offer call handling services to businesses looking for a reliable outsourced solution to handling incoming phone calls.

Moneypenny’s managing director Glenn Jackson comments: “As a new partner of the Law Society Scotland, we’ve been really encouraged by the steady takeup of the service. Firms have contacted us for a host of different reasons, whether looking for support in handling overflow calls at peak times, or to provide effective telephone cover during lunch breaks, holidays or sickness, or even to fully outsource their telephone answering.”

The benefits available may be discounts specific to Society members (as for example with TM Lewin, Hertz, Trustis), or simply the existence of a service designed to meet professional needs, as with Stewart Title’s title insurance or Landmark’s desktop search reports on contaminated land. But sometimes the saving is via the service provided – telecoms consulting company 9dots claims it can virtually guarantee to save your business some money on its phone services and mobile contracts, and in some cases over a third on call charges.

Details about the various benefits and companies can also be found in the member services section on the Society’s website www.lawscot.co.uk. The Society is keen to receive feedback from members with their views on the services offered and their experience of using them.