Having started out principally as a crime practice, the Smith Partnership has evolved in recent years into a multi-disciplinary firm with seven offices across the region. The firm also has a nationwide commercial client base. Unlike many of its counterparts, it still has large crime and family departments (publicly funded), which work alongside its private client lawyers and commercial team.
In the autumn of 2002, the partners agreed that the firm had come to something of a crossroads and that decisions affecting the firm’s strategic direction needed to be made. A business plan was agreed with “the global domination of the UK legal market within five years” as its object – if not actually global domination, then something pretty close. This was a major challenge, and drastic action was needed. Therefore, the firm made the ultimate sacrifice and, with a certain amount of scepticism, appointed a marketing expert, Emma Auger, to help it achieve this heady but very ‘SMART’ objective.
