Member Article

Lawyers hop aboard to understand their clients

Lawyers from a firm in Newcastle are heading down to the bus stop to get to grips with the activities of one of its clients.

Paul Hughes, partner at Crutes along with Phil Mann and Chris Smith from the firm’s insurance department all spent a day at the Metro Centre Coach Park, where their received lessons from instructors at Go North East.

Crutes and Go North East have worked together for the past decade, and the law firm were keen to refresh their understanding of what driving a bus involves ensuring they are able to offer up to date legal advice in road traffic insurance cases.

Go North East finance director, Colin McPherson said “Crutes’ approach to bus driver training exemplifies their close understanding of our business.

“This has been instrumental in the success we have had in, for example, challenging fraudulent insurance claims.”

This is not the first time lawyers at the firm have left the courtroom to get to grips with their clients. Employees at the firm have spent time down one of their client’s mines to understand health and safety procedures, worked in a factory to learn about metal crushing equipment and on a building site to get to grips with construction processes.

Paul Hughes said: “Crutes has an exceptionally skilled and experienced team of lawyers, but we can only make use of this if we get to know our clients inside out.

“Having an awareness of what our client’s employees do can be invaluable so it is important for us to come in and learn as much detail about it as possible.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .