Shepherd and Wedderburn CEO Stephen Gibb 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? We ensure that we are delivering true value through listening to our clients. We don't stop at delivering the advice; we talk to clients, understand their commercial and personal imperatives and remain focused on achieving them. Our greatest benchmark is the feedback we receive from clients – they are the ones who benchmark the value we deliver because it's about value to them. That value is measured against the impact on them and their business.

How do you differentiate your offering in an increasingly crowded and competitive market? It seems trite to say that we differentiate our offering by knowing what's important and focusing our offering on that. While most firms would make the same statement, our continued success in a competitive environment evidences our success in actually achieving this. We are confident in the technical abilities of our lawyers and invest in developing outstanding commercial skills and industry knowledge. It is our first-rate commercial and client handling skills that, in challenging situations, come to the fore and truly differentiate the Shepherd and Wedderburn service from others.

What innovation(s) have you introduced in the last year that has/have added most value to clients? Our innovations have largely been IT-related. We have deployed a new CRM system and a new e-learning platform, as well as technology-based cost, process and project management tools. While these may not themselves be 'innovative' or physically tangible to clients, how we use them positively influences and elevates the power of our engagement with clients and the value they derive.

In a multi-jurisdictional fraud case, we developed an IT application to collate, share, manage and report on a large volume of property, financial and loan data. This data had been held by the client in multiple locations, administered by different people within their organisation and meant that they lacked a clear, coherent and actionable view of their data. Our solution provided a large team with efficient, secure access to relevant data on a 24/7/365 basis, irrespective of location and device.

What clients like about the firm • Good partner- and senior-level contact, commercial and practical advice • The ability to get a job done, the strength of its conveyancing and construction departments • Of all the legal firms we use, Shepherd and Wedderburn are consistently the market leader in respect of the quality of advice, their fee structures and willingness to deliver invaluable training

Shepherd and Wedderburn's top scores 1. Partner-level contact 2. Overall relationship with firm 3. Communication and responsiveness

For more information visit: www.shepwedd.co.uk

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.