mfg celebrates standout year in Chambers and Legal 500 rankings
mfg Solicitors is celebrating another highly successful year in the UK’s leading independent...
mfg has always taken a considered approach to sustainability. Our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Policy has guided us well so far, but we felt the time was right to formalise our processes and embed sustainability further into everything we do.
To get there, we appointed Positive Planet to help us develop a strategy that governs how we do business the right way, with Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations at the heart of the firm. A light touch double materiality assessment helped us understand where we can have the biggest impact. The result is our Advocates for Good strategy, built around three priority topics: Consumers and End Users, Employees, and Climate Change.
Advocates for Good
mfg Solicitors has always stood behind the people and businesses in our region, and we are committed to bringing the same care to everything we touch. Advice our clients can build their lives on. Careers our people can grow into. A lighter footprint on the world around us. We act where we can make the greatest difference, for our clients, our colleagues, our communities and our climate.
Our ambition is to keep striving for better, for the environment, for the people who work for us and for our local community. This first annual sustainability report sets out where we stand today and what we plan to do in the coming year.
“We have always tried to do right by our clients, our people and the communities we work in. What we did not have was a framework that held us to it. Advocates for Good gives us that structure, and it gives our clients and our people something to hold us to.” - Iain Morrison, Chair
Consumers and End Users
Our clients underpin everything we do.
Some of our teams already offer free calls, with no obligation, to members of the public to help them understand whether their case is worth pursuing.
We are exploring how to capture better client data through feedback and satisfaction measures.
We invest in building legal confidence across the local business community and regularly run workshops, roundtables and seminars. We are also heavily involved with our local Chambers of Commerce. Over the next year we plan to expand that involvement and to start tracking more information about the events we run, so we can report on their impact properly.
“Most people come to us at a difficult moment, either in their lives or in their business. A free conversation at the outset costs us very little, and it tells someone honestly whether they have a case worth pursuing. Doing that well is the most useful thing we can offer, long before anyone becomes a client.” - Andrew Davies, Managing Partner
Employees
Both Employees and Employment in the Community scored highly in our materiality assessment. We pride ourselves on a culture that champions work-life balance, supported by initiatives including a health and wellbeing programme and an Employee Assistance Programme.
Our employees come first, and we have built a culture where support is available whenever it is needed. It shows in our staff turnover figures, which sit well below the legal sector average.
Training and development is an area we invest in heavily. Several courses are mandatory for all employees, including health and safety and sexual harassment training, and these are complemented by mental health, diversity and neurodiversity training.
Behind our training agenda is our Learning and Development Coordinator, a newly created role focused on bringing structure to a previously fluid approach.
As we continue this work, we are taking a keen interest in helping young people from the local community into work. Our apprenticeship scheme is in motion but not yet active, and we continue to work with the local college to keep things moving. Apprenticeships would help secure our workforce for the future, bring the right people in early and create employment routes within the local community.
“Training here was never lacking, it simply was not joined up. My job is to give it a shape, so everyone can see what is available to them and where it leads. The apprenticeship scheme is the part I am most keen to get moving, because it opens a door for local young people that is not always obvious from the outside.” - Sophie Saunders, Learning and Development Coordinator
Climate Change
Climate change has the power to completely alter how we work. As a professional services firm our carbon footprint may be lighter than that of other industries, but we will still take a considered approach to our environmental responsibility. We have already reduced paper use across our offices and set up conference facilities between sites to cut down on business travel.
The next step is to understand our emissions baseline. We are planning our first emissions measurement and will set reduction actions and targets from there.
“The last few summers have been hotter than the buildings we work in were ever designed for, and flooding across the West Midlands has closed roads and disrupted our clients more than once. For a firm rooted in this region, climate change is not an abstract issue. Measuring our own emissions is the first step.” - Tim Lang, Partner & Head of ESG
Looking Ahead
We recognise we are early into our journey. Sustainability has always been a consideration at mfg, but it now has real substance behind it. Advocates for Good gives us a North Star to aim towards. Monthly sustainability reports are produced and presented to our Senior Leadership team, strengthening our governance, and we will continue to formalise our processes and report publicly on progress.
Events
Birmingham Charity Quiz Night 2026
Three years, three sell-outs! We managed to raise £5,794 from the quiz!
Huge thanks to the mfg CSR Committee, particularly Kiran Kaur and Jack Cook for the enormous effort they put into organising the quiz, with brilliant support from Lydia Parfitt and Elizabeth Armstrong.
Padel Tournament
We entered a team in the inaugural Birmingham Children's Hospital padel tournament in Barnt Green.
The event raised over £10,000 for the charity and was great fun - just don't ask us how we got on ...let's just say we didn't make it to the final!
