Mishcon de Reya managing partner Kevin Gold talks to Legal Week about what makes the firm a Best Legal Adviser for 2016-17

How do you deliver true value and how do you benchmark the value given? By having a frank conversation throughout and, afterwards, a wrap-up conversation to assess the value. Most clients of substance need honesty. When they come to us for services outside our sweetspot, we say: we can do it, but you can get better value elsewhere and we can introduce you. We're not trying to be a client's only lawyer. We want to do what we do really well because we are convinced we can show value. Our Client Feedback Programme gives a good steer on the value we're delivering, but we assess actual value by repeat client business.

How do you differentiate your offering in an increasingly crowded and competitive market? Our strapline is: it's business but it's personal. We understand the type of clients that place equal importance on their business as on their private lives: the interface makes sense to them. Wealthy families and global capital don't distinguish between the two. It's what's affecting their life at that moment. We've found our own niche by straddling those two areas in a Rolls-Royce way. That means we can't do the very biggest transactions, we haven't got enough lawyers; but as far as we can, we manage to be their lawyers and then work out if we can do really well or not. That's been a sweetspot for us because the value the clients perceive is as much in the value of the job at hand as in the relationship you build up.

What innovation(s) have you introduced in the last year that has/have added most value to clients? Part of our strategy is to build offerings that are ancillary to pure law to make the service delivery efficient and to run businesses that support the main firm. For example, we created Mishcon Discover, an in house e-discovery business, which we guinea-pigged on our own litigation cases and now sell to other firms. Clients benefit from efficient e-discovery services; saving costs on large, complex litigation cases by using predictive coding.

What clients like about the firm • Commercial, friendly and accommodating • Effective, detailed, focused analysis and advice • Excellent work at a reasonable price

Mishcon de Reya's top scores 1. Communication and responsiveness, quality of service delivery (tied) 2. Partner-level contact 3. Commercial approach and understanding of my business

For more information visit: www.mishcon.com

The Best Legal Advisers Report will be published in December. For more information email [email protected] or call her on +44 (0) 203 868 7545.