Tilney Bestinvest has been appointed as the Law Society of Scotland’s expert partner, offering investment management and financial advice for solicitors’ clients.
As part of a series of partnerships the society is launching this year, the agreement will provide resources for solicitors looking after the financial affairs of clients and trustees through the society’s website, seminars and the Journal Magazine.
Lorna Jack, chief executive of the Law Society of Scotland, said: “Professional financial advice for clients has become an increasingly important area of work for solicitors as people seek to protect, grow and ultimately pass on their assets.”
Paul Frame, managing director at Tilney Bestinvest, added that the firm has a long history of working with the Scottish legal community, helping to strengthen and maintain solicitor and client relationships over the generations.
“We aim to support the Law Society and its membership by offering additional expert resources on the investment and financial planning matters that will benefit solicitors’ clients.”
Last week, Beaufort Financial Planning announced that it had joined Sifa, the business development firm for financial advisers and solicitors, signing up for their professional service.
Simon Goldthorpe, executive chairman of The Beaufort Group, said: “There are so many changes in the legal landscape with new competition for solicitors and crucially new regulation that mirrors the member firms of our own group.
“We realised that we could not possibly keep abreast of all the implications ourselves and saw this as a key element of what Sifa Professional offers.”
Dave Seager, development director at Sifa, has been pushing the adviser and solicitor integration message for some time, telling FTAdviser last summer that advisers should be forging deeper relationships with solicitors due to the regulatory issues that both are encountering and impacting profitability.
He said: “RDR brought professionalism to the adviser industry and advisers can now add value to solicitors as advisers have client relationships which solicitors don’t,” commented Seager at the time.
“All the work that solicitors refer to an adviser, whether that be matrimonial, pensions, etc, will always have an investment element and a relationship element so advisers can add value. Solicitors are not doing well profitability-wise, so now is the time.”
peter.walker@ft.com
