Pukaar Magazine met with Senior Partner of Bond Adams Solicitors, Rafique Patel to discuss the running of his firm and visions for the future.
Situated on Leicester’s London road, Bond Adams Solicitors is one of the Midlands leading law firms, known for their quality of work, delivery of service and impeccable communication. Their area of legal expertise specialise mainly with disputes, including employment, trademark and debt collection to name a few. The firm also covers property work as well as acting for hotels, pharmaceutical companies and various other sectors.
Rafique opened Bond Adams in 2008, formerly a partner at Leicestershire’s largest law firm Harvey Ingram. He explains humbly the progression and choices he made to get to where he is now: “I did quite a lot of work experience and originally wanted to go into accounting, I had applied for accounting degrees and then I did some work experience where one week was enough to tell me I wasn’t interested. Then interestingly I went to a Law firm and found it quite exciting to go around all the courts and realised, that’s what I wanted to do, so I found a university and that was it really.”
The great relationship built with Rafique’s previous firm Harvey Ingram, where he had worked for over a decade gave him the confidence to go at it alone. Once setup he only had the intentions of specialising in his own area of expertise but was offered work that were less familiar, instead of shying away Rafique embraced the opportunity in order to grow the firm by employing people specialised to those areas. Rafique shares his not so typical day: “It’s commonly 7.45am start, I will do a lot of reviewing ready for when my colleagues come in at 9am. I’ll also prepare a lot of my work and dictate what needs to be typed ready early on. I could be out at court or in meetings for half a day so it can be really varied.”
Staff retention is highly important to Rafique and the pride he has for all of his colleagues is unmistakable, as he explains about the monthly meetings which are held to see where the staff are at in terms of career direction, with possible opportunities of progression. Team work and communication are key elements to the success of Bond Adams and is what sets it aside from any competitor: “there’s not just one person working on a particular matter, there might be two or three people, which emphasises our quality of service. When that first phone-call comes in, myself along with reception make sure that the customer is looked after and that we follow through right down to the office.”
Bond Adams expanded their offices earlier this year to accommodate the growing number of staff and skills; Rafique shares his visions for the future of his firm: “We make sure that our people are business people. Traditionally lawyers saw themselves as lawyers first and business people second but it’s actually completely different due to social media. You need contacts, clients, family who know business. Doing the work is equally important but what we want in our firm is to make everybody a business person.”
