It started with a conversation on the M5!
Anne Austin
Director
On 23 January, we celebrated fifteen years of Enderley Consulting the only way that felt right: by gathering the people who made those fifteen years possible and celebrating with them.
Friends, family, clients and professional partners travelled from across the country to join us at Hencote Vineyard in Shrewsbury. As we looked around the room that evening, we were reminded, as we so often are, that the most valuable thing we have built over fifteen years is a community of people we feel genuinely privileged to know.
How it all began
Every business has an origin story. Ours started somewhere on the M5, near Bristol.
We had left private practice in 2010 and were taking some time to think about what came next. It was on that particular drive that Anne announced she wanted to be a Lexcel consultant, and so the seed was planted – but we quickly noticed something that would change the direction of everything. While there were already a number of Lexcel consultants in the market, genuine compliance consultants were almost nowhere to be found. There was a real need going unmet, and we decided to fill it. Enderley Consulting was born.
The timing, as it turned out, was fortuitous. The year after we launched, the Law Society introduced the Conveyancing Quality Scheme. The SRA followed shortly after with outcomes-focused regulation. The regulatory landscape was shifting quickly, and we found ourselves perfectly placed to help law firms navigate it. Over the years, our work grew and deepened – into AML, COLP and COFA support, training, cybercrime resilience, and the full breadth of compliance obligations that legal practices must manage today.
“Enderley would be nothing - it simply wouldn’t exist - without its clients. Thank you for choosing us, thank you for staying with us, and thank you for placing your trust in us. Most of all, thank you for your friendship, which we value more than we can say.”
A deliberate choice
Along the way, there have been opportunities to grow the team, to scale, to build something larger. We have thought about those opportunities carefully, and each time, we have come back to the same answer. Our whole ethos is to deliver a strongly personalised approach. The relationships we have with our clients are not a byproduct of the work; they are the point of it. Growing beyond what we can deliver personally has never been what we wanted, and we believe our clients feel the difference that makes.
What we did not fully anticipate, when we started out on the M5 that day, was quite how many of those clients would become something so much more than clients. Many of them are now very dear friends, and that is something we hold more precious than we can easily put into words.
An evening at Hencote Vineyard
The celebration itself was everything we had hoped for. Hencote Vineyard, set in the beautiful Shropshire countryside just outside Shrewsbury, provided a stunning backdrop for an evening that felt, from the moment guests arrived, warm and entirely genuine. There were canapés, glasses of Hencote’s own wine, a birthday cake, a balloon arch, and speeches that made us laugh and brought a tear or two as well!
One of our favourite moments was a video we had put together of clients and friends sharing their birthday wishes directly to camera – you can watch it below, and we defy anyone in the compliance world to watch it without smiling. Hearing those voices, from people who have been part of our journey for so many years, meant more than we can say.
The video also captures the evening itself: some beautifully posed photographs, and rather a lot of candid ones. If you were there and are wondering whether you made the final cut – you almost certainly did, quite possibly mid-laugh or mid-canapé. You have been warned. We were also deeply moved by how far people had travelled to be with us. Everyone has busy lives, and the fact that so many of you made the effort to come – some from considerable distances – is something we will not forget. It spoke louder than any speech.
What comes next for Enderley Consulting?
Fifteen years in, we are already excited about the next chapter. In 2026, we will be launching a new venture in partnership with Infolegal; a comprehensive compliance hub that brings compliance training, training records, central registers and records and much more together in one place. We cannot wait to share more about it with you very soon.
Will there be another fifteen years? Who knows. What we do know is that we count ourselves extraordinarily lucky. We look at each other sometimes and say: “Goodness, how did we get so lucky to have so many lovely clients?” And then we pinch ourselves, because we know the answer: we got lucky because of you.
To everyone who joined us at Hencote that evening, and to those who sent their wishes from afar – thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. Here’s to what comes next.