No referral fees, no price-matching, and lights out at half five. Partner Sajid Nazir on how a two-partner practice in Towcester has thrived by doing things differently, and the Dye & Durham “partner” he trusts to keep it honest.
As its name suggests, Shepherd & Co. has never had much interest in following the flock. While some firms win business by undercutting pricing or aggressive marketing, the Towcester practice has decided to make its work, and its reputation, its sole referral tool. It pays nobody for referrals, matches nobody’s price, and would rather its people went home at half five to have a good work/life balance. The reward for opting out? The firm, he says, is “incredibly busy”.
Located in a listed end-of-terrace cottage on the edge of Milton Keynes, where the firm has practised since 1970, Sajid and his partner Jabeer Ali Miah, took over the firm from its founder, Robin Shepherd, around seven years ago. Today Sajid handles residential and commercial property alongside family work, while Jabeer concentrates on property and litigation. There are seven of them, with clients up and down the country, and not the faintest itch to become something bigger. “We’ve got no aspirations of becoming some high-flying, massive regional firm – we are a local firm with a national client base,” Sajid explains, yet still the firm has a presence that belies their small size.
Building a reputation on principles
Referral fees are where the firm draws its first line on competing on incentives or the lowest price. Sajid’s logic is simple. Clients who instruct Shepherd & Co. should do so because they want Shepherd & Co., not because someone was paid to send them. The same goes for the growing breed of client who rings round collecting quotes and asks whether the firm will beat a rival’s figure. His response is disarmingly practical: if somebody else will do it for that price, why not go with them?
This isn’t stubbornness for its own sake. As Sajid understands, a firm that competes on price ends up doing more for less until something gives. Shepherd & Co has bet instead on repeat instructions and word of mouth, and the bet has paid off well enough to keep the diary full.
“This concept of ‘anything you can do, I can do cheaper’ just doesn’t work with us.”
“Nobody does us a favour by coming in to work”
If the firm is choosy about its clients, it is positively protective of its staff. Sajid cheerfully describes himself and Jabeer as “quite socialist”, and he means it in the most practical sense: the spoils of a good year are not theirs alone.
“It’s not just our cake to eat,” he says. “We enjoy sharing it with others as well. Nobody does us a favour by coming in to work – it’s not Butlin’s, by any stretch of the imagination!”
The house rules would raise eyebrows in plenty of firms: Nobody starts before nine or stays past 5:30. Between one and two, weather permitting, the office shuts, and Sajid would much rather people took themselves out of the building than ate a sandwich over a file. On Fridays the whole team decamps to a local restaurant for lunch, a tradition nobody shows any sign of breaking. Sajid admits to working “like a machine” himself, but that’s his choice, not a job requirement. “I think we owe it to our people and their families that at least they’re home on time.”
The result is a loyal and engaged team that the partners can rely on: two of the team have been there since the partners arrived while another two were trained at the firm. Another is now working towards qualifying as a licensed conveyancer. Sajid is realistic that people move on eventually, but he wants the firm to be one where they thrive before that.
“When you come into Shepherd & Co, when you leave Shepherd & Co, you should have some more feathers in your cap than you came in with.
The “third partner” who manages the accounts
When it comes to their accounting, Sajid and Jabeer also value collaboration, efficiency, and respect for expertise. Neither has much love for admin, and with the accounts amounting, as Sajid puts it, to “half the business in real terms”, the firm needed someone they could rely on. That someone is Simeon Coxon, Shepherd and Co.’s dedicated legal cashier through Dye & Durham, who is also the head of Dye & Durham’s cashiering department with a team of 29 cashiers. Because Shepherd and Co.’s also use Dye & Durham’s legal practice management system, which is fully integrated with the cashiering function, Simeon has everything he needs to oversee the firm’s finances and to complete all necessary reconciliations.
From the start, Simeon has been a lifeline to Sajid and Jabeer. When the partners took over the business, they inherited accounts with some running 18 months behind. Simeon had every reconciliation up to date in about a fortnight.
Seven years later, cashiering simply isn’t something the partners do – they know they can leave it all to Simeon. The office team creates e-chits and Simeon takes care of the rest: the reconciliations, the postings, the month-end close and the VAT return. He also does the detective work when a payment turns up from an estate or a pension company that nobody was expecting.
What Sajid prizes most, though, isn’t the convenience. It’s how Simeon cares about the firm’s accounts, as much – if not more – than someone in house might. When Simeon raises a flag, work stops, even if that means pulling one of the partners away from whatever he’s doing. As Sajid explains it, while an in-house cashier would ultimately answer to the partners, Simeon answers to the rules.
“I prefer that Simeon is a third party. He’s not going to cut a corner, and he’s going to make sure I’m compliant. That’s his job.”
For all that, the relationship is warm rather than transactional. Sajid has Simeon’s mobile, and Simeon isn’t shy about ringing in the evening to ask what on earth a posting is about. Seven years in, he knows the firm’s numbers well enough to tell Sajid how the month went.
Sajid suspects he knows the business better than he does, finance-wise. “Although he’s not part of the firm,” he says, “Simeon is the third partner.”
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