Andrew Hiesley is Managing Director of Conveyancing Direct Property Lawyers Ltd (CDPL). Originally from a financial background, he has grown CDPL to 170 staff with offices in St Leonards-on-Sea, Cardiff, and a rapidly expanding operation in Burton-upon-Trent.
You’re from a non-legal background, how did you become MD of Conveyancing Direct?
“That’s correct, yes. I completed an accounting, finance and management degree then I happened upon Conveyancing Direct through a friend of mine who had got a job here after university. In November 2002 there was a position within the finance department as Finance Assistant and I thought I’d take that as I continued to look for a “proper” job. I suppose that proper job snuck up on me over the years.
“I worked in the finance department for approximately two years then went to work for Connells as their Conveyancing Panel Manager. At that time the panel consisted of about a dozen law firms carrying out the conveyancing instructions from roughly 500 estate agency branches. I held that position for about 18 months before Conveyancing Direct tempted me back with a role as Business Analyst. Over the years that followed I was promoted to Operations Manager looking after the remortgage business, then Operations Director with oversight of remortgage and transactional and ultimately Managing Director in November 2013.”
When was Conveyancing Direct founded?
“Conveyancing Direct was formed in 1992. It was the brainchild of the previous owners who were working as a partnership and wanted to get into volume conveyancing. Connells acquired Conveyancing Direct in the spring of 2002. I joined about six months after the Connells acquisition.”
When did you return after your time at Connells?
“I returned to Conveyancing Direct in 2006 as Business Analyst. I took on various responsibilities under that title. A large part of my role was to analyse and report on the performance of the business both in terms of productivity, but also processes. I was involved in relationship management with introducers, I got involved in dealing with lenders and complying with the requirements to be on lender panels. I also took charge of our Customer Service department before I was made Operations Manager in 2011. In that role I took direct responsibility for the remortgage department, which I am proud to say has gone from strength to strength. I had that role for just over a year before I was made Operations Director in 2012. At this time I was also given responsibility for the transactional side of the business: sales and purchases. A year and four months later I was appointed Managing Director. It’s been a long process, but obviously over the last four years things have moved pretty quickly.”
What can you tell us about the growth of the company since you left and then rejoined?
“When I first started I think we had about 30 people in our office in St Leonards-on-Sea. At this point in time we currently employ about 170 people across three sites. We now have an office in Cardiff and a third office in Burton-upon-Trent.”
I believe you have plans for training and apprenticeships?
“Since I took over as Managing Director, it has become one of my main focuses because of my ambition to grow the business. I think the most successful way to do that is through developing and training our staff. I have been given a lot of opportunities over the years; coming in at one of the most junior positions, and I want to make sure that others have the similar opportunities, as learning the business from the bottom up helps you understand the impact of your decisions. It is actually quite unusual for us to employ someone straight into a senior role, although I have just appointed a new Manager in our Burton office. Their remit over the coming months and years is to grow that office by 300%. That will involve a lot of recruitment and training for our employees and should provide some exciting opportunities for those working in that office. In terms of training, we offer “on the job” training for all staff but, in addition, we offer the CLC licensed conveyancing course in-house, in order for our employees have the opportunity to become qualified. I’m actually not sure there are too many other businesses providing progression, as we can, from a novice with no experience to being professionally qualified within 5 years – completely funded by us. We are also accredited to provide in-house CPD training and deliver this specific to conveyancing and our processes. This allows us be incredibly focused for employees and their specific roles, rather than maybe heading off to a course to get some CPD points. The focus here is to get relevant knowledge.”
Tell us about your apprenticeships.
“This is something I am incredibly pleased with as we have only started relatively recently, but are involved with apprenticeships on two fronts. Last year we took on a couple of apprentices to complete an NVQ in Legal Administration. The apprentices are due to complete their course in May and we have already offered them full time positions for when they pass. We are looking to get another two this year as it has been a real success. What we did was create a plan for the entire year, so they spent time with each department learning how they all fit together and how we provide the overall service. They now have a good platform for understanding how each role impacts on the others within the business. I’m hoping that will allow them to forge successful careers at Conveyancing Direct.
“We also have the Government’s Trailblazer 2 apprenticeship programme of which Conveyancing Direct is now the lead employer. We are also working on this apprenticeship programme with a consortium of other conveyancing businesses in England and Wales. There will be two levels: a Conveyancing Technician and a Licensed Conveyancer. It will be good to attract people who don’t realise conveyancing is a real opportunity, certainly school leavers. We work with schools and universities to ensure our name is out there and that students know conveyancing is a career option.
“I was delighted that Emily Eldridge, one of our Associate Property Lawyers, was awarded Young Conveyancer of the Year at the LFS Awards last year. Emily is a product of our internal training, arriving with no conveyancing experience and in short time has propelled herself into becoming a very accomplished young Property Lawyer.”
How is technology impacting on your business?
“Technology is something we always embrace. We’re constantly looking at ways to become more efficient, to create more robust processes, to mitigate risk or to simply improve the customer experience. Only today I was reminded by a colleague of mine how, only 10 years ago, we used to telephone Her Majesty’s Land Registry to order OS1s and record them by hand with the priority period. Since then we have come a long way and now order OS1s automatically without having to move away from our Case Management System. It is only through further advancement in technology that we can achieve the necessary scalability to grow this business.
“There are a number of things on the horizon within our industry with software like Lender Exchange and all of the good work the Land Registry is doing. It’s important that we integrate as much as we can with third parties and I like to think we do that quite well already. We are currently working hard on further improvements to our case management system to make our employees’ and customers’ lives easier. There are a lot of tasks within conveyancing that do not require the level of skill that our staff have and, if we can free up more time for them to spend on the skilled, knowledge-based side of the job, we will be able to enhance our service further. That’s the reason people put in huge amounts of time and effort to gain qualifications, after all.”
To what level has the business grown in terms of the volume?
“This year we will do about 5,000 transactional completions and we’re aiming to exceed 22,000 remortgage completions. We’re one of the larger conveyancing businesses in terms of volume. Certainly on the remortgage front there are some really big players who do significantly more than us, but overall we are one of the larger firms. Something that a lot of people who know about our ownership may not appreciate is that only half of our business is introduced from Connells Group.”
Is there a long term plan for the business?
“The overall plan is to sustain growth whilst enhancing our service offering to our clients. Along with that, we are looking to continue to improve life at Conveyancing Direct for our employees and make sure that we are an employer of choice for those wanting a career in conveyancing. I’m absolutely sure there will be other opportunities in terms of diversifying slightly and growing in other areas, not just replicating what we do now, so I wouldn’t want to limit ourselves in that sense.
“We’ve got a really good opportunity in Burton to grow the team, which is currently our smallest office with about a dozen staff. There is a lot of room for expansion and it is somewhere I want to focus our growth in terms of recruiting new talent and putting a lot of effort into training and developing the staff that we have. If anyone wants to be part of a successful and growing conveyancing team, now is a great time to get in touch so you can be part of the continued success of our business.”
