On Saturday, representatives from Lovetts Solicitors took part in the Guildford ‘Pretty Muddy’ 5K Cancer Research Race for Life. The team smashed it’s initial £2,000 target and the entire company would like to extend a huge thank-you to all those who took part and all those who sponsored.

It was a rainy start to the Saturday morning that saw the Guildford leg of the Cancer Research Race for Life take place, but that didn’t dampen spirits as a huge crowd gathered in Stoke Park to take part in the proceedings. There were obstacles aplenty across the 5K run, and all members of Team Lovetts – commonly referred to as the ‘Lovetts Pink Ladies’ – completed the course (although as you can see from the pictures it’s fair to say that some got more muddy than others!)

The team has been raising money since the start of the year for the event, and it’s a cause close to many of the participants’ hearts. There’ve been bake sales, photoshoots, and a whole host of online fundraising activities, and it was a delight to see the overall £2,000 target not only hit but also surpassed.

Jamie Gavin, Marketing Manager for Lovetts, who helped organise the company’s participation in the event, said: “This has been a fantastic experience from start to finish. From deciding to run the event, to the fundraising efforts, right through to the energy and enthusiasm shown on the day, we have worked as a team and run as a team to raise as much as we can for Cancer Research. And a huge thank-you also to all those who sponsored!”

This month marks the 10^th anniversary of Sarb Dhaliwal’s tenure at Lovetts Solicitors. The Chartered Legal Executive and Legal Department Manager began working for the firm in 2009, and has since that time maintained a 100% success record in defended cases in court.

Having started her career in the banking industry, Dhaliwal’s legal training in the financial sector led her to develop an interest in Law. Already working full time in a demanding industry and with a young family to care for, taking the plunge to start studying the Chartered Institute of Legal Executive exams required intense dedication:

“The evening classes and correspondence course allowed me to continue working full time with flexibility within my studies,” says Sarb. “As I was working full time and with a family, it meant studying from 10.00pm to 2.00am nearly every night for four years, but I did complete the course and passed with distinctions. During my third year, my knowledge of – and interest in – the legal side of the financial sector, led to my employer at the time offering me a new job with an in-house solicitor, which allowed me to start putting into practice what I had learnt.”

Now heading up the legal department for Lovetts, Sarb is responsible for an expanding team, and has been instrumental in driving administrative updates and customer service enhancements in recent years. Despite her managerial responsibilities, the Executive remains passionate about providing direct legal assistance and has dealt with approximately 60 defended cases during her time at the company, to date maintaining a 100% success rate in court.

“My 10 years at Lovetts have been a wonderful and challenging experience. I have learnt so much and continue to learn new things as cases become more complex and complicated. I love the challenge of dealing with defended cases and will go through my client’s evidence (and indeed the defendant’s evidence) thoroughly and diligently to ensure nothing is overlooked and that I get the best possible results in the most cost effective way for my client. It is accurate to say that I have never lost a case at court during my time at Lovetts, but that of course means that the pressure is on to maintain this record and that is one of my key goals!”

Earlier this week, Lovetts presented Dhaliwal with a special commemorative pen to mark her service to the company, and Michael Higgins, Managing Director for Lovetts, said:

“Sarb continues to exemplify the absolute highest level of legal service to our clients, her team, and those working throughout the entire company. Her decision to stay with Lovetts at a time when the firm has been focused on expansion, and therefore needed to attract and retain the strongest talent in the industry, has been instrumental in helping us to achieve our goals. We thank her for her dedicated service, congratulate her on her impeccable court record, and look forward to continued success.”

Lovetts this week held a bake sale event to help raise money for Cancer Research UK, ahead of the firm’s participation in the Race for Life later this month. A total of £175 was raised through the bake sale alone, along with an influx of online donations around the event.

The Guildford 5K Pretty Muddy will take place in Stoke Park on Saturday 27^th July. A team of seven from the firm, known as the ‘Lovetts Pink Ladies’ have entered the event, and aim to raise a combined total of £1,500 for the charity.

The Ladies are now well on their way to achieving this, and we’d like to extend a huge thank-you to the other local businesses who came along to support the bake sale on the day. It was a fun event and the participants enjoyed making the treats as much as others enjoyed eating them!

If you’d like to find out more about the Lovetts Pink Ladies Race for Life Team or sponsor us in the run up to the event then you can find out further information here.

Lovetts Solicitors will next week attend the Surrey Business Expo, which is taking place on Wednesday 12^th June at Surrey Sports Park at the University of Surrey in Guildford.

It’s not the first time the firm has attended the event, although this year we will have a stand at the exhibition, with a number of staff members from across departments on hand to answer questions and talk attendees through their UK and international debt recovery options.
All businesses incur late payment and debt recovery issues, and with more than 20yrs experience in this area, Lovetts has built up considerable expertise in what we do. We’re also passionate about playing a role in the local community – while we work on cases on a national and global basis, Guildford is our headquarters and the firm understands the importance of helping to support a strong local business sector.

Now in its 12^th year, the Expo provides a meeting ground for companies to showcase their business and meet with other local business people face to face. We will be on Stand 269 at the event, right next to the speed networking and seminar areas, so if you are in attendance please come by and say hello and feel free to ask us any questions you may have!

Lovetts Solicitors has been featured in the Law Society Gazette, in an article looking at innovation within the legal sector. The coverage comes following the appointment of new Operations Manager, Pritti Amin, who will also head up the firms litigation department.

Technology and innovation are two things that we take seriously at Lovetts Solicitors. Our online portal, CaseManager, provides clients with complete control over their cases, with detailed reporting and the ability to view key figures and dates. A Letter Before Action (LBA) can be sent on your behalf from as little as £1.50, and we have found this practice to be successful in the retrieval of debts within 86% of cases, meaning no further action needs to be taken.

Everything is geared towards making the debt recovery process as effective and straightforward as possible. As the firm expands further, Amin and our entire team will help Lovetts to oversee the rollout of new products and services, improving the debt recovery process for clients even further.

According to the Gazette, this modern approach to legal services represents ‘a growing trend among law firms to incorporate technology into their practices’. You can read the full article on the Law Gazette website here.

Last week Lovetts fielded a team in the Cardinal Gold Cup, which was held at the Laithwaite Community Stadium, the club’s official ground. The 5-aside football festival was extremely well attended, and the entry fees provided by each team will be put towards next season’s playing budget.

It’s the first time that the Lovetts Lions have played together as a team, and it was great to see them start their club history with a 3 – 0 victory on the hallowed Woking turf! Unfortunately the results didn’t quite go our way after that and we were unable to take home the trophy, but it was a fantastic event to be involved in and one that produced a great community environment on the day.

As a ground and media sponsor with Woking FC, Lovetts attended a number of events at the stadium last season. In addition to corporate and consumer engagement, the club plays a strong role in the local community, having formally launched its Woking Football in the Community project in 2004 with the goal of providing ‘individuals through sport the opportunity to participate in educational, health and fun based sport activities regardless of age, gender, ethnicity and ability.’

The athletic branch of the company will next turn its attention to the Cancer Research Race for Life, when the Lovetts ‘Pink Ladies’ team competes in local race, the Guildford ‘Pretty Muddy’ 5k. You can find out more about that event here, and in the meantime a huge congratulations to Woking, who were promoted to the National League earlier this month!

A team from Lovetts Solicitors will take part in the Cancer Research Race for Life in July, entering the Guildford Pretty Muddy 5k. The ‘Lovetts Pink Ladies’ (and Danny Zuko) have already begun fundraising for the event and you can view the official team sponsorship page here.

The run will take place at 11am on Saturday 27^th July in Stoke Park, Guildford, and is comprised of an obstacle course as well as (you might have guessed) lots of mud! Every two minutes, someone in the UK is diagnosed with cancer, and all money raised at the event will be used to fund life-saving research.

“As a company we’re always looking for things we can do in the cause branding and social investment fields,” says Sarb Dhaliwal, Legal Manager for Lovetts. “Race for Life is obviously something that’s just a bit more fun, which a number of members of the team probably would have entered into anyway, and doing it this way allows us to do the activity together as a company. We all know somebody who’s life has been impacted by cancer in some way or another, and while other causes might have become more fashionable in recent years, I think it’s important to keep the awareness and the fundraising up around cancer research.”

As the Cancer Research website outlines, just £5 kits out one of the Charity’s ground-breaking research labs with essential chemicals, £20 buys a new bulb for microscopes, and £400 is the cost of running Cancer Chat for one day.

If you would like to donate please visit the official Lovetts Pink Ladies team sponsorship page here.

Lawyer Monthly, a corporate law based publication which boasts a broad global readership, has announced Lovetts Solicitors as the UK Debt Recovery Law Firm of the Year. This prestigious award is presented to a firm that has provided an outstanding service to their clients in the previous twelve months, not only through expertise and response to changing demand, but also with a dedication to innovate the sector they are in.

Since 1994, Lovetts Solicitors have specialised in debt recovery. Having always been a forward thinking firm with a true passion for technology – going paperless in 1998 and developing their market leading client portal CaseManager shortly afterwards – Lovetts continue to meet and exceed the expectations of their clients in all aspects of their debt recovery journey. Lovetts will continue to transform and modernise in step with their client base.

Speaking of the award after its announcement, Lovetts’ Managing Director Michael Higgins said “Lovetts have been specialist debt recovery Solicitors for over 23 years. To be recognised as the best debt recovery law firm is a great honour but credit goes to the team at Lovetts because without their hard work, quality and professionalism this award would not have been possible.”

If you or your business struggle with unpaid invoices or late paying customers, get in touch with Lovetts Solicitors through our website today.

Lovetts Solicitors has been featured in the latest issue of the Surrey Chambers of Commerce magazine, in an article examining flexible working opportunities within the modern workplace.

The article follows on from the recent Business Women in Surrey (BWiS) event, which featured Lovetts Operations Director, Cassandra McCarthy, and took place at Surrey Business School on the University of Surrey Campus in Guildford.

During the event the panel shared practical experiences and examined pragmatic approaches to how companies can physically implement more flexible working patterns for their staff. The panel emphasised that businesses are no longer solely adapting to traditional gender issues like opportunity and equality, but seeing an overall shift in employee attitudes and working processes.

“This is not just an issue that is related to flexible working hours around women or even parenting in general,” said Cassandra McCarthy. “At Lovetts, we see examples of flexible working across the company. We have a number of younger staff members for example who are currently undertaking legal training, and have approached us to schedule their hours around that. Some people come early to avoid traffic, or find it helps to work from home on certain days. It’s about evolving past that more traditional view of a 9-5 working structure and encouraging a level of flexibility through which people feel they are performing at their best.”

Also in attendance of the event was Lovetts Solicitors Managing Director, Michael Higgins, who gave his views on the subject: 

“Flexible working has been a hot topic since Flexible Working Regulations were introduced in 2014,” says Higgins. “This was one of the most interesting and engaging events I have ever been to with fantastic contributions from the panel. At Lovetts Solicitors we have become more open to flexibility and this fortunately resulted in Cassandra McCarthy joining the Lovetts team in 2014 as a Solicitor. Failure to adopt flexible working risks businesses losing out on employing extremely talented people such as those that appeared on the panel.”

Woking FC took on Premier League side Watford in the FA Cup earlier this month, and as an advertising partner of the local club, Lovetts was on-hand to throw our full support behind the team. We’ve collected together some of the key messaging and images around the tie here.

Beaten 2-0 by Watford, Woking put on a strong display in the third round of the FA Cup, but sadly in the end didn’t have enough for the Premier League side.

It was nonetheless a great occasion, and in addition to our advertising within the ground, on the Woking FC website, and in the regular home game programmes, Lovetts Solicitors also published messages of support in the Woking News & Mail, across our social media, and in the special souvenir matchday programme that was published in special celebration of the tie.

To view a selection of images from in and around the FA Cup tie, simply click here.

Woking still sit second in the National League South, with two games in hand over rivals Torquay. The Lovetts team will be attending a live game later this season to see The Cards in action first hand, and we wish them the best of luck in their upcoming fixtures!