Updated 27th October 2020
Since this blog was written the results of the Law Society’s Excellence Awards, have been announced. Imagine our absolute delight when Mooneerams solicitors were named as one of just two ‘highly commended’ firms, behind the winning firm, in the category of Small Law Firm of the Year.
To put that into perspective, there are more than 9000 solicitors’ firms and 190,000 solicitors in the whole of England and Wales. In being highly commended, we were considered worthy of being named as one of the top three small law firms in the country. What an accolade for our small but dedicated team at Mooneerams Solicitors of Cardiff.
If I’m honest, in the past, at Mooneerams, we’ve always shied away from the whole idea of entering legal industry awards. We’ve taken the view that people don’t choose a personal injury solicitor based on whether they’ve won an award or not.
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Online 5 star reviews, Google rankings, word of mouth, recommendation from existing clients – these are the main methods by which people decide who they are going to trust, to help them with their personal injury claims.
It wasn’t a conscious decision to enter two legal awards in 2020. It wasn’t even in our mind to enter one as we moved into the New Year.
Then in February, we received an email from the Law Society of England and Wales inviting us to submit an entry in the Law Society Legal Excellence Awards 2020. We’d like to think that we were specially chosen for the honour of taking part, but we’re pretty sure every other firm in the land got the same email!
Anyway, we had a chat about it and decided to submit an entry for the award for Small Law Firm of the Year. After all, if ever we were going to put ourselves in the running for an award, when better than in the year of our 18th birthday?
Then we did nothing about it, as we got on with other matters. Before we knew it, the Covid lockdown had been announced.
It would have been easy not to follow up with writing the awards submission. There was a lot going on in the world! Ultimately, though, we took the view that if we did enter and by some chance got shortlisted for an award, it would be a real morale booster for all the team at Mooneerams, at a time when there wasn’t much in the way of good cheer to be found anywhere!
If truth be told, we found that putting an awards submission together was a really good opportunity of taking inventory of where our Cardiff based personal injury solicitors’ firm was at. It reaffirmed that although we are small in terms of numbers, we punch way above our weight. It also confirmed what a brilliant bunch of people we have working with us here at Mooneerams.
Having to gather a collection of testimonials from our fellow solicitors at other law firms, from the clients we have helped during the year and from some of the many charities and grass roots sports clubs that we have donated to, or sponsored, over the past 12 months, brought home to us, just what a warmth of feeling there is towards Mooneerams Solicitors.
Duly completed, we sent our submission off to the Law Society in London, whereupon we promptly forgot about it.
Then, lo and behold, we were invited to enter the Wales Legal Awards in the ‘Personal injury firm of the Year’ category. Buoyed by having already put together a detailed submission for the Law Society we did the same again for the Wales awards.
Once more we sent off our submission and once again, forgot about it.
It was in June that, out of the blue, we received the email telling us that we’d been shortlisted for the Wales Personal Injury Solicitors award. We were stunned. Delighted just to be shortlisted. Anything more would be a bonus.
Then in the same week in early September in which the Wales Awards were to be held (virtually, of course) we received another email. This time from the Law Society in London. We’d only been shortlisted for the Small Firm of the Year Award! To make us even more proud, we were the only Welsh Solicitors firm on the shortlist. Carrying the flag as they say!
We didn’t win the Wales Award. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t gutted on the evening. Our team were all watching online, and I was, most of all, disappointed for them. Nevertheless, we had no divine right to win and the ultimate winners were fully worthy of their success.
We are still in the running for the Law Society Excellence award. The winner of that will be announced in mid-October. Will we win? We have no better and no worse chance than any of the other firms that have been shortlisted. Anyway, we’ve tucked that away for next month or so.
Whether we win the Law Society award or not, we’ll be proud of our achievements. To be shortlisted for two prestigious awards is something to be proud of.
Will we do it all again? Maybe. In another 18 years.
