Reflecting on the past year at Cognitive Law

As we approach the end of 2023, and the festive season is nearly upon us, Lucy Tarrant, solicitor and Managing Director at Cognitive Law, shares her reflections of 2023.

I’m always staggered by how quickly a year passes. My daughter tells me that is because I am old, but I prefer to think it’s because of how much we pack into it.

We kicked off the year by welcoming St Barnabas as a new charity partner for the firm. St Barnabas is very close to my heart and, having used their incredible service, I know all too well how wonderful they are. The support they provide to their patients and families is invaluable. Our charity efforts started by taking part in the Step Challenge where we pledged to walk 7,000 steps a day. Happily, we successfully achieved this and more! This year St Barnabas celebrated 50 years of loving care for the community in Worthing, Adur, Arun and Henfield areas and it has been a pleasure to support them along the way and we look forward to continuing doing so next year. 

This year also bought an exciting change to the networking lunch club that we run on a not-for-profit basis for professionals in Brighton and Hove. The First Friday Lunch Club is one of the longest established lunch clubs in Brighton, and we were delighted to partner with Whitespace at the beginning of the year to manage and run the club. The First Friday Lunch Club was rebranded, and a dedicated website built to enhance the experience for the Club’s members. We are thrilled to have sourced brand-new venues this year, and next year is looking bigger and better than ever. So do keep your eyes open as we’d love to see you along to one of the lunches soon.   

As a firm we, love to share our knowledge, and help to support our clients and those in the industries we specialise in. As such, we ran several seminars and were delighted to have been invited to speak at a number of events throughout the year. Our later life team partnered with Benchmark and Scarlet Monday to hold a seminar on succession planning and wealth management for business owners and due to its success, we hope to run a series of seminars on this subject next year.

Personally, I was thrilled to be invited back to The Recruitment Agency Expo in London as a guest speaker to discuss the legal requirements of running a recruitment business, an area I specialise in. I was also delighted to be on the panel at the hugely successful Directors Forum event alongside other business experts from Rubix VT, Knill James, Extech Cloud and Preston Insurance Brokers.

In other events we were delighted to host several breakfasts at Sussex Innovation, where our Head Office is based. We really enjoy getting to know our business neighbours, and hosting a number of events for the other members has been a fantastic way to form new connections amongst the business community we have at Sussex Innovation.

June saw a shift back to our charity efforts when Richard Bates took on The Starr Trust’s Bike Ride Challenge. The epic challenge saw Richard join a team of (crazy!) cycling enthusiasts to cycle from Bristol to Brighton, via the Isle of Wight in 3 jam-packed days. The Starr Trust is another one of Cognitive Law’s official charity partners, and one that Richard is a Trustee off. The charity, also based in Sussex, has a mission to remove roadblocks for young people and to help them succeed and thrive in whatever they put their minds to.

At the time of writing this we’ve just enjoyed a fantastic evening celebrating The Starr Trust at this year’s Winter Extravaganza. An evening of music, laughter and of course fundraising – a whopping £50,000 was raised in total! It was an honour for Cognitive Law to be part of the show as a Pop Partner. What a fantastic way to kick off the festive season!!

On the business front, one of the key areas we wanted to focus on this year was to look at the way we provide legal services to our clients. We took time to listen to our clients and build an understanding of their needs in terms of how they want legal services delivered. We know the legal landscape is changing and will always strive to ensure we are providing our clients with exactly what they need, when they need it. Therefore, to better suit our clients’ needs we have developed a number of legal retainer packages. This means commercial clients can pick a package that suits their business requirements at a price point they are comfortable with and enjoy legal advice on demand, as and when they need it. Of course, all businesses are different and therefore our packages come in different sizes and can be made bespoke to the business. We hope this offering will alleviate the stress on business owners, with the knowledge they can have access to legal advice when they need it, and with a payment plan everyone is happy with. 

We’ve also seen a year of growth for the firm and welcomed new consultant solicitors to the team. David Lawrence joined us earlier in the year and has fast become an asset to the team with his expertise and knowledge in the commercial property sector. The later life team has also expanded with the appointments of David Watson and Mandy Tourle who have absolutely hit the ground running. We are thrilled to have them on board and are excited about further growth for next year – keep your eyes peeled!

Lastly, I can’t finish without the mention of our awards success this year. In May I was delighted to be shortlisted in The Dynamic Awards as Lawyer of the Year and more recently awarded ‘One To Watch’ in the Professional Service category at this year’s Sussex Business Awards. I can’t tell you what an honour it is just to be shortlisted amongst such tough competition, and I am so proud to be part of such a fantastically supportive and collaborative business community.

As they say, there’s a lot more in store for next year, and I can’t wait to see what 2024 brings.

By Lucy Tarrant,
Solicitor and Managing Director

www.cognitivelaw.co.uk