Celebrating 21 Years In Business
This month, Cate and I celebrate 21 years in business. We founded our firm in 2004 and to mark our 21st anniversary we sponsored an exhibition of internationally renowned artist Derek Ogbourne‘s oil paintings at the Fishing Quarter Gallery on Brighton Seafront. Last Gasp, Infinite Oxygen.
This exhibition was also to raise awareness about Palestinians facing Genocide as well as raising funds for Medical Aid for Palestinians.
Over the past 21 years our firm has grown from just 3 members of staff to 24. It hasn’t all been plain sailing. Not long after we set up the firm, huge cuts were made to Legal Aid funding of our housing law contract and we had no option but to hand back this contract.
To continue being able to give back to our community we changed our business model from being a Legal Aid firm to a campaigning law firm.
Our first Employment Law campaign, ‘Mind The Bump’ in 2004 was set up to stamp out pregnancy and maternity discrimination in the workplace. Every March this campaign continues to offer free advice clinics for employers and employees as well as free training. This includes providing our legal know how free of charge to Community Works, who look after charitable and non-profit businesses.
We have also added more annual campaigns such as Disability Matters, Diversity Matters, #MeToo Matters, Menopause Matters and Social Care Funding Matters.
Our campaigns provide best practice advice and training to help people access justice and to run fair and diverse companies.
Cate has been instrumental in turning around our business since closing our housing law services by developing a new Community Care Law service for Professional Deputies. This not only won us a national award for the Law Society Excellence in Business Development in 2016, but has also secured our longevity with Cate’s team growing from just two lawyers to today’s ten strong team.
As I approach retirement, with Cate close behind me, succession planning has been very much on our minds.
As we won our great reputation through the dedication and expertise of our hard-working employees, it seems only right and fair that we hand our business over to them.
We will transfer to an Employee Ownership Trust on 1 April 2026 in recognition that our employees are our greatest asset. We are confident that they will steer our firm positively into the future so we remain the “human face of law”.
On this happy note, here are the photos of our recent celebration at Derek Ogbourne’s art exhibition with our staff both past and present, family, business contacts and friends. Our partners for the event include Butlers Wine Cellar, John Varah of Same Sky, Vamos Paella, Sayen at Myco4, photographer Matthew Andrews, speaker Mo Nasser and DJ Delany on the decks.
All attendees donated generously to support the vital work that Medical Aid for Palestinians carries out and we raised over £1,000.
Towards the close of the evening, the police attended and required us to stop shining our lighted up messages as there had been complaints about their content. These messages said “Free Palestine” and “Justice For Gaza” along the walls of the arches. More than 50,000 Palestinians have now been killed and yet our small silent protest was prevented.
To mark our anniversary, if you also want to take a stand against this Genocide, please support Medical Aid for Palestinians. Our JustGiving page is still open and your donations would be very welcome, large or small.
To find out more about our campaigning work, contact us today on 01273 609911, or email info@ms-solicitors.co.uk.
