Considering the recent announcements of an overwhelmingly positive customer satisfaction survey and the CTSI Approval renewal, it is not surprising that membership is increasing, and more people are using IPW members for their legal service requirements.
Dennis Gardener, Chairman of IPW and ISPW, has taken the time out of his seven day per week schedule to discuss the innate benefits of using IPW companies for a legal service and why becoming a member of IPW and ISPW is a crucial step in ensuring a company is fully validated and respected within the Wills and Probate sector.
What does your role as Chair consist of?
I sit with five other members of the council ensuring that we do all the right things for the Institute. We try and give information as to why the Institute should be used and also make sure that we have the right people on board, both new and existing. We ensure that existing members continue to stay and maintain certain standards. There are too many cowboys in the industry unfortunately and we need to ensure that we get rid of them and make people understand the importance of using a recognised Will writer.
How do you manage this voluntary role alongside your own business?
There is a difficulty here. It takes over, it consumes all things. This is my fault as I like to answer all queries as far as I can. I took on the role of chair which is voluntary. Many things pertaining to IPW can be done from my office, which reduces time. However, there are many out of office obligations, like meetings, that do therefore take up a lot of extra time. I want to be seen around and I want to make sure the Institute’s name is out there. But it is a lot of juggling and a seven day per week job between my two professional duties. Hopefully, my wife sees me in between.
What role do you see for the IPW within the Wills and probate sector?
It’s all about trying to get rid of the cowboys and trying to make people understand that, yes they can go to a solicitor and have their Will written, but does that solicitor have the right skills, understanding, training and qualifications?
We have an obligation to train new and existing colleagues to ensure they become the best they can be. The institute has been around now for over 25 years, we’re trying to make sure that we are delivering the right knowledge to our members. Also, we want to make clear to people outside, that we are long-standing, our members do have to pass their exams, do the relevant amount of continual professional development (CPD) every year and they ensure that the right insurance is in place with at least £2 million worth of cover for every document they draw up.
Additionally, members need to attend the various meetings that we have across the country and ideally, I am trying to make more and more of the long-term members; encouraging them to give back their extensive knowledge to new and younger members.
We are not only professional in title but also in name; this is something very important. We want to ensure we have the best possible people out there, make sure our voice is heard, and that people understand the IPW is a standard of quality.
What makes you different from other membership bodies?
We have achieved the Chartered Trading Standards Institute Approval for our Code of Practice; we are very proud of this and is something that we have worked extremely hard over several years to achieve and maintain. We know that this is an important way to go so people understand what they are paying for when one of the IPW Members visits them.
We are a transparent organisation; people know what our terms of business are, who our insurance brokers are and how they can have a full end-to-end feel that things are being completed professionally. Because we’ve got the badges, because we’ve got the CTSI approval, it is important that people realise that we do have these things in place, and a dedicated and qualified team to help and support them.
We have a forum where members can post questions and will receive accurate and swift responses from their peers. We are very good at sharing our knowledge with each other.
Certainly, before I joined, I had the image of a highly regimented organisation all about exams. However, when you actually look at the organisation properly: yes, it has precise standards; yes, you can only enter via exams or through previous professional accountability of sample work done, but you have to be the right kind of person at the right kind of minimum level before you join.
That is extremely important to us. This is the way forward and this is the way to cover your back and something the Institute can and will do. If you are operating properly we will support you all the way.
The institute brings on board all the relevant training and understanding needed to succeed. We are supportive and require a standard of excellence, if a member is struggling, we will help them get back to expected standards.
Local and national Government listen to what we do. The IPW, although not the biggest in our field, is the one where the ‘professional’ in the name is what very much comes through. The people looking to join us have found an organisation with: good reputation, exacting standards and people that want to be members.
Have you set a date for the next conference? What are the plans?
The next conference will be in March, as it always is. The 20th and 21st of March are the confirmed dates. We will host again at Drayton Manor Park, near Tamworth. The venue decision is a difficult one as everybody wants it in their own back yard if they can. By hosting in the middle of the country, it makes it considerably easier for everybody to access.
As well as the Annual General Meeting (AGM), we also have an extensive Continual Professional Development (CPD) and learning element. We are offering a whole host of different speakers that will be explaining their part of the industry. Our aim is to demystify things so that when the members ask a question, we can explain with more detail and accuracy as to why various things can happen.
For the first time last year, we made the conference a day and a half because I am a big believer in the best part of a conference, being that time reflecting, collaborating and discussing ideas with colleagues over coffee, lunch or in the bar. Spreading the conference over two days has therefore been extremely beneficial and something we will continue to offer.
The conference also enabled our exhibitors, people with software or new technology, to explain these new processes in detail rather than rushing through them in a brief coffee break.
How do you encourage the next generation of professionals to choose this as their career path?
Wills and Probate is something that a lot of people do not think about. It’s also a sector that when people do consider it, they tend to get a feeling that they will make a small fortune out of it. In the past, it may have been that we could earn £100,000 per year, drive an expensive car and enjoy life; this is just not the way for the majority.
The important bit now is that the process is carried out properly and you are going to look after a client. We are here to give the best advice we can to a client and hopefully help them to decide that this is the way forward for them. This is the mindset a new person entering the industry has to have and something they must understand.
One of the major frustrations for new Will writers is where does their new business come from. In the training that we offer, we do a one-day course for people looking to see if this is the right thing for them. The three-day course is then offered for people that do want to come into the profession before they do their exams to see if this is the industry for them. We do not paint the sector with rose tinted spectacles, we present the facts to get the right people into the industry.
Most importantly, we are very good at sharing our knowledge with other people. The more we get to meet and converse through mediums like the conference and regional meetings is extremely good for new people to get to know other will writers
What challenges do will writers face in the near future? What would you like to see change within the sector?
I’d like to see more qualified people and larger uptake of a recognised organisation that looks after Will writers and makes us accountable at the end of the day.
I want to make sure that people are happy with the way things work. Modern technology is quickly changing the face of our existing sector. The retail market has totally changed, many famous names continue to disappear from the High Street. All of a sudden, old-fashioned Will writers, like me, who have always taken the information in front of the client, on paper, because we argue that is the best way of doing it, have been superseded by those taking instruction on laptops and tablets, telephone appointments, internet Wills.
Technology offers answers to the clients straight away; something that in the past where a trained professional may have taken time to consider and check the text book, is instantly accessed by the swift research of the internet, the computer will think about it for you. It’s not the be all and end all but is a way to ensure we have captured everything correctly. The litigious society we live in is a case of: have we got all the relevant notes, all the information, have we made sure that in the future, when we may not be alive, everything is there to support our judgements. Technology stops this being in the brain of the Will writer; this is something a lot more important than it was in the past.
Technology needs to ensure that we look after the client and used correctly it is an added bonus and checker of our work. I still see the importance of meeting in person. It offers lots of peace of mind to clients. It also makes sure that in difficult cases, we can offer the expert advice that a computer is never going to be able to. However, there is space and we have to accept the fact that the industry is getting much broader than it was beforehand. Embracing these changes whilst ensuring these are the right thing for the client and that their wishes have been met will always be integral to providing the right will/solution for the client.
What are the benefits of IPW training and CPD courses?
IPW training is something that we realise is most important for everybody who is a member. Associate members must do eight hours structured CPD a year Full and Fellow Members twelve hours which is completed through a variety of means from the webinar, regional training meetings to the traditional classroom-based approaches. We are doing a lot more interactive, round table-based training because there is no one right way and this allows attendees to collaborate, discuss and learn new approaches to situations. The training is taught by very experienced Will writers. Additionally, because we have got official CPD accreditation, if you are a chartered accountant or solicitor for example, you’ll be able to give our course certificates to your professional body to count as part of their CPD.
If you are the dedicated practitioner that strives to provide a quality, bespoke service to every client, you deserve to be a member of a well-respected organisation that can help your business grow. Joining the IPW will give your business that additional element of quality.
