Conveyancing Case Study: Steven Sutherland of PM Group

At the mid-point of National Conveyancing Week we took some time to speak with the PM Law Group, who have combated shortages in qualified conveyancers by taking on apprentices with Total People.

We spoke with Steven Sutherland from PM Law Group, to find out more:

Hello and thanks for joining us today to share your experiences of working with Total People. Could you introduce yourself please?

Of course, my name’s Steven Sutherland and I'm the Head of Group Training at the PM Law Group, which is based in Sheffield.

Could you tell me a little bit more about you and your role?

I'm a solicitor by trade, but I moved into training around about 15 years ago. I look after the learning and development of about 450 people that work for the PM Law Group.

Can you tell me a little bit more about PM Law Group and the services that they deliver?

We are a full-service law firm - we are a solicitors practice and we deliver legal services to the public in the areas of property / conveyancing. So that could be sales, purchases, or re-mortgages. We also offer personal injury services, (which could be an accident at work, a road traffic accident or clinical negligence), employment law, and wills and probate.

Have there been any changes in the property industry in the last year or two that that have changed what your team need to be prepared for?

Yeah, there's always a real demand and thirst for change in conveyancing.

The public feel that conveyancing can take quite a period of time because they just want to move into their new property, so there's always a demand to try and speed things up. We are always on the lookout for new technologies to help that process become faster and more efficient.

But there are lots of regulatory changes as well, not only in law but also in process. One of the main changes that we're encountering at the minute is resulting from the Grenfell tragedy. When we have people buying flats, we have to make sure that the property follows regulations and is acceptable to the rules that the lender has set out. We ensure that people can buy their flat safely, knowing that it has been built in a safe environment.

Before starting on their apprenticeships, was there anything that that your team were unable to do?

Here at PM, we offer quite a structured training program to allow people to develop and move into different roles. But what we've not been able to do is actually give people a professional property qualification and that's what Total People offered. So, whilst we can deliver training in-house to show people how to practically undertake the role, what they're actually gaining from Total People is not only the qualification, but a deeper understanding of the theoretical elements of property work.

Have you noticed any benefits as an employer, once your teams started studying for their qualification?

Obviously, the main benefit would be that people have better knowledge as a result of their study and the byproduct of that is they're able to do their work more effectively. And then obviously that leads to much better client service and offering better and fuller advice.

One of the benefits that maybe I hadn't anticipated is the motivation. People are really enthused and motivated by the fact that they're undertaking this qualification. They've got a qualification to aspire to and they feel valued that we've invested in them.

How has the service that PM Law offers improved since starting to upskill your team?

Learning and development is always important in our area of work. We know that by looking after our employees first, our clients will be looked after.

The apprenticeship positions are an important part of that. As I said before, it gives people a much deeper understanding of what conveyancing is about, what land law is about, what their role is about and the different tasks that they have to embark on.

That translates into a much happier person delivering the work, and a much happier client.

How has your experience been with Total People since you started using them as your apprenticeship provider?

It's been great. In the meetings we had before onboarding, Total People were really transparent about how they were going to look after our people and they've delivered on the promises that they set out.

The onboarding experience was actually really, really good as well. It was really slick and they were able to reassure our learners that this was the right qualification for them.  They were able to set expectations about what was expected of the learner to make sure they're going to be successful through that period of learning, to gain that qualification.

And while all the learning has been great, it’s when they started to receive the one-to-one tuition, that things became elevated. It's been great getting that one-to-one coaching between tutor and learner, it's really helped bring our people on.

What sort of feedback have you been getting from your team on how they found the experience of studying with Total People?

It's been really encouraging. They're all saying that, not only are they’re enjoying the relationship that they’ve got with the one-to-one tutor, but they're really enjoying getting to grips with studying too.

The one thing that I'm always conscious about with these things is “are they getting enough support from the apprenticeship provider”? And that's definitely the case with Total People. They're getting sufficient coverage on the theoretical topics and the tutor has been able to bring the theory to life in a practical way.

What was the reason why you chose Total People rather than another provider?

We went through quite a robust evaluation of different providers; we invest a lot in training and we want to make sure we have the best providers looking after our best people.

Total People scored highly - it was clear early on that they've got a real passion for making sure that the learning is structured and really understanding each individual learner and, the real point of difference for me, was the offer of one-to-one coaching.

Would you recommend Total People to anyone who might be reading this?

It's a definite thumbs up from me. Total People have been tremendous with our people and also with us as an employer. They give us plenty of information and plenty of opportunity to meet with them so we can understand the progress of our learners. They’ve also given me guidance on what we need to do in order to help that learner. So, it's been about more than just the qualification for us - it's a definite recommendation from me.

So, the most important question now: why should somebody consider a career in conveyancing?

There are lots of reasons why people should consider a career in conveyancing. It’s fast-paced. It’s dynamic. It's challenging intellectually. You get to work in different areas of law, contract law, landlord and tenant law, land law.

But the big thing about conveyancing for me is that you help people that are generally moving to the house of their dreams. There's really nothing better than being able to pick up the phone to call your client and tell them “We’ve completed and you've purchased your new home, go and collect your keys”. 

Those are great conversations to have and there's a lot of hard work to get to that stage, but you're helping people realise their dreams.
 

If you’d like to find out more about our Apprenticeships in Conveyancing, click here.