It joins a growing number of organisations turning their employees into custodians of the business for future generations.
Bennett Oakley, which has offices in Brighton, Burgess Hill, Hassocks and London, is the first law firm in Sussex to become employee owned. Although employee ownership is growing in the UK, it is still rare in the legal sector, where the firms that are becoming employee owned tend not to move to full employee ownership like Bennett Oakley.
Simon Elliott, Bennett Oakley’s managing director, said: “Employee ownership is about looking after our existing employees and attracting the best talent to work for us.
"Becoming employee owned means our people now have a direct stake and say in the business.
"Law firms tend to be very hierarchical with profits being shared among partners and everyone else having very little input into the operations or strategy of the business.
"Moving to employee ownership means that our people will take an equal share of our profits and will have a direct say in the business through our Employee Ownership Trust.”
Simon Elliott, who previously owned the business, is retiring and the leadership team which has been in place for the last 12 months will take Bennett Oakley forward.
Sarah Rowland becomes Bennett Oakley’s CEO; James Leighton becomes Managing Director and COLP and Samuel Cash becomes Operations Director and COFA.
“I’m leaving the firm in a very strong position,” says Simon Elliott.
“When I started thinking about...
This visual verification may not be accessible to you. Use the audio verification instead: click play to hear 6 digits, wait for the audio to finish, then move forward using the control you normal...