Back in June 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, Estate Research, one of the largest international probate genealogy firms in the UK, suitably adapted their commercial approach of business development away from conferences and began to offer webinars delivered by expert speakers to their primary client base of Private Client practitioners. The uptake of the very first session with Gill Steel was astounding and made clear the need for free, online training within this area of law in the UK. Estate Research therefore continued to host free expert webinars with different speakers each month.
Eighteen months later, with the webinars still pulling in hundreds, if not sometimes thousands of registrants; Estate Research launched their own purpose-built online training platform titled the Learning Hub. The site offered users recorded webinar content as well as the opportunity to register for upcoming sessions all for free and all specifically for Private Client practitioners. The site also kept a record of the content watched by each user so they could edit and download their own individual CPD logs in line with SRA guidelines – all for free.
In 2023 the Learning Hub was recognised at The British Wills and Probate awards, winning the ‘Best Use of Technology’ award against tough competition.
Fast forward to 2024, Estate Research are once again making big changes to continuously improve the platform. With the news that the esteemed and highly respected Gill Steel was retiring and discontinuing her LawSkills training website, Estate Research acquired a mass of content from the website to offer to their Learning Hub members for free.
This not only includes 33 recorded LawSkills webinars and notes on an array of Private Client topics from the last three years but will also provide new material in the form of The Monthly Digest – Gill’s much valued analysis of all developments in the Private Client world and updated Technical Learning Packs that will be made available later in the year.
In regards to the acquisition, Gill Steel commented “I am delighted that my customers can still access the LawSkills products even after my retirement with the launch of the LawSkills pages in the Estate Research Learning Hub. I don’t feel as guilty as I otherwise would about retiring.”
Managing Director of Estate Research Aidan Hutchings added “first and foremost we are a genealogy company, but the opportunity to enhance the Learning Hub with the LawSkills content could not be missed. Gill’s retirement and discontinuing of the LawSkills website would be a great loss to the industry. Gill’s wealth of experience and knowledge, and the huge success of her highly acclaimed Lawskills platform needed to be retained, and so we are delighted to work with Gill to acquire the content, make it available to our Learning Hub users and continue to work with Gill on new content for the Learning Hub”
Private Client Practitioners can create a Learning Hub account for free at www.estateresearchlearninghub.co.uk .Once registered they can access the newly acquired LawSkills video content and Monthly Digests as well as the other sector specific training on the platform which includes more than 200 webinars delivered by industry experts.
