Earlier this month, TV Edwards LLP celebrated the last 12 months with a well-attended and upbeat AGM at Queen Mary University’s Innovation Center.

Senior partner, Jacky Starling welcomed attendees to the first in-person meeting in over two years. Managing Partner, Julian Overton, gave a review of the previous financial year and set out what we would be focusing on over the next 12 months.

Guest Paul Smith from Travelers Insurance highlighted a few examples of risky behaviours that we should avoid when managing cases.

Our IT and marketing partners, Accesspoint, then entertained the AGM with a pre-recorded video which set out how we had substantially increased our levels of engagement online with potential clients.

Michelle Howard, independent management consultant, then spoke about the work she has been doing with the partners to develop the firm’s visions and values and strategic planning.

The main section of the AGM heard from each of our departments with a rundown of the last 12 months.

Felix Couchman highlighted one of his Actions against the Police cases where his client had finally been awarded damages after being harassed by a police officer who had unlawfully accessed the National Crime Database and found (and then disclosed) very sensitive information about her traumatic past. Emily Black and Maya Jordan-Shah spoke about the range of work that our Housing, Community Care, Court of Protection and Public Law teams do. Alpa Ghelani made the presentation on behalf of the family department and welcomed the return of our two family heads of department from their maternity leave. Edwyn Traill and Peter Thibault made a presentation on behalf of the Dispute Resolution department. Nii-Amaa Ollennu along with Syeda Anjum made a presentation on behalf of the Property and Probate department. Adrienne Wright made a wonderful comparison of events over the last year in Crime to the movie Die Hard 2. Kerry Lynch, Jakob Seger and Yesim Hall made a presentation on behalf of the Mental Health department.

HR Manager, Lisa Walton, announced new staff benefits that would be introduced over the next 12 months including increasing sick days from 5 days to 10 days, a health cashback plan from January and looking into electric vehicle salary sacrifice. She also reminded us of resources already available to all staff including an employee assistance programme – contactable 24/7.

Event highlights

The highlight of the AGM was the section where we recognised excellent performances over the last year. Best client feedback awards went to Gemma Adams, Patrice Lawrence and Peter Thibault.

Nathaniel Gadsby was given the outstanding achievement award after completing his Duty Solicitor accreditation within the first six months as a newly qualified solicitor and already advocating at his own trials. Case of the year went to Shaun Livingston for obtaining damages of £18,000 for a young person from a local authority and an acceptance from the local authority that they had acted in breach of our client’s human rights by imposing incredibly severe restrictions on his movement and lifestyle such that they had deprived him of his liberty.

Finally, Barbara Colgan was presented with the unsung hero award. Barbara is our Head of Finance and battled a broken ankle in three places and then a serious fracture in her knee. Barbara spent 2021 in and out of hospital and in a lot of pain. With the help of her accounts team, Barbara was able to carry on managing the firm’s finances allowing us to continue to provide crucial services to our clients.

To conclude the event, we raffled some fantastic prizes (expertly arranged by Rose Brooks) in aid of our charity of the year – the Alzheimer’s Association.