IB Woman
Issue No. 52 - April/May 2010
Serina’s thoughtful change of Pace
Serina Pace launched her commercial law practice from a small North Adelaide office in 1998, aged 26.
As the practice grew it extended to Personal Law but interestingly, Serina is reconsidering how her business runs in the context of some timely advice.
“In January 2008 I refocussed my goals for the practice going forward,” she says. “I wanted to return the practice to its origins of purely Commercial Law – and be the best in the boutique firm market at it.
“I decided the firm would operate under two umbrellas, namely Commercial Law and Personal Law. I had secured the name ‘Adelaide Legal’ in 2007 when brainstorming my refocus and reinvention of the firm, so I decided on this name for the Personal Law business, because it was not dependent on the Pace brand. That is, the credibility and goodwill for Pace had grown attached more to my Commercial Law client base.
“The firm’s Personal Law clients had grown to know the firm’s other solicitors such as Julia Adlem, Associate Lawyer, rather than me. Julia, who joined us in 2006, had built an outstanding reputation in the Personal Law area.
“With these elements in play, it made perfect business sense for Julia to manage the Personal Law business going forward and Pace to return to its roots of Commercial Law.”
While Serina has clear goals, she considered it “both essential and valuable” to engage an expert to evaluate the business and identify necessary steps for growing profitably in Commercial Law. The exercise wasn’t always comfortable, but helped reinforce Serina’s ideas.
“It is true that you benefit greatly from having someone else outside of the business both guiding you and driving you,” she says. “I also took the view if you’re going to do something, do it properly. I engaged one of the best consultants in the business, being David Whitbread from Deloitte Growth Solutions. We identified five key issues that required attention.”
