The global head of operations at international law firm gunnercooke, Adil Taha, has joined Mezzle to help further accelerate the consultancy law firm’s already rapid expansion.
Mezzle, the only leading consultancy firm set up by a lawyer who has actually been a consultant himself, went live in September 2021 and already has 46 lawyers on its books—36 in the UK and ten in the UAE. It is the brainchild of former gunnercooke solicitor, Mel Kang, and Raj Sumal, formerly of Flint Bishop and DAC Beachcroft, who plan to develop the model significantly following Taha’s appointment as commercial director.
Taha, who has a private equity and investment banking background, played a key role in turning around London law firm Child & Child as its COO in 2019 before launching consultancy firm, Kingsley Wood and recently leading gunnercooke’s global operations.
At gunnercooke, he has helped drive its international expansion, including into the US for the first time, a market Mezzle has longer-term ambitions to enter.
Mel Kang says: 'Mezzle has reached a significant moment, where we need to build on the initial excitement and growth and solidify our market position as offering something different to lawyers who want to work, or already are working, as consultants.
'It says a lot about what we have already achieved that Adil has left one of the biggest names in the market for a two-year-old start-up. His strategic and operational savviness will help us finesse and develop our tech-based, consultant-focused culture that will help us pull away from the rest. Between us, there is little we have not seen or done.'
Adil Taha says: 'The foundations that Mezzle has been built on, and especially its bespoke tech-platform, demonstrate to me that they intrinsically understand the needs of lawyers in a way that other consultant offerings don’t. This may be a fast-growing market, but it is still relatively new and there are a lot of lessons out there on how not to do it.
[The tech-based modern vision that Mezzle has, compliments the ideas and opportunities that I will look to bring to the business. After meeting Mel, it was refreshing to hear how Mezzle’s plan is to use bespoke technology to improve both lawyer and client experience - it’s something claimed by many but very few do it effectively.
Mezzle is also very serious about quality over quantity when it comes to attracting lawyers, a strategy that I have found is not always followed by others adopting this model.'
Mr Kang has spent the last 13 years in consultant firms. 'None of the leaders of other consultant firms have been consultant lawyers first,' he says. 'I speak and breathe the language of a consultant lawyer.'
He says consultant-based operations are still too often seen as a road to retirement and he wants to change this perception: Mezzle attracts lawyers who are in their 30s and 40s with at least ten years’ post-qualification experience. They work on the proprietary platform, Mezzle Cloud, with paralegal support available.
Mr Kang stresses the support provided for consultants to build their own brands: “Clients go to the individual, not the firm. We want to help the individual.”
Further, to separate Mezzle from competitors, the business plans to launch the Mezzle consultancy pathway programme to help debunk the myths about the consultancy model and educate lawyers about the benefits of becoming a true consultant lawyer.
Mezzle consultants keep 70% of their fees up to £500,000 and 80% thereafter.
'Opening in the Middle East last year showed us that there is significant appetite for the model elsewhere in the world. As in many areas of legal practice, UK lawyers are leading the world in developing consultancy firms and we have identified significant opportunities in other countries, including the US. Adil’s experience will be invaluable here too,” adds Mel.
Mr Kang acknowledges that consultancy law firms like Mezzle can look similar from the outside but says what distinguishes them is how they execute their strategy. He has the advantage of having worked at others and seen what works and what does not.
'Before Google, there was AOL, Ask.Jeeves and so on. Then Google came along, having learnt from these pioneers, and built something more efficient and executed it better. When it comes to consultancy law firms, Mezzle is what Google is to the tech search engine world.'
Such is his enthusiasm for the career that Mr Kang has begun running seminars to teach would-be consultants what they need to know to pursue this career path. 'You need to re-map your brain,' he explains. 'We have been conditioned as traditional lawyers to have a salary all our lives. It doesn’t have to be that way. I am passionate about giving lawyers the freedom to make it on their own.'
Image caption: Mel Kang (left), Adil Taha (centre), and Raj Sumal (right).
