Westminster Law

Overview

Five classroom days became two for every new adviser at Westminster Law. The firm's online training course went live on 21 June, eight days ahead of its deadline. Its managing director wrote most of it himself.

Westminster Law is a will-writing and estate planning network across southern England and Wales. It has more than 30 advisers, and the network more than doubled this year. Growth at that pace needs training that grows with it.

gecco onboarded the whole team, coached a group of AI Champions and guided each build. The firm's own people then built the tools. They include the course, a drafting engine now in final testing and a set of everyday skills.

A network growing past 30 advisers

Will writing and estate planning depend on precise, consistent advice. A lifetime trust, a lasting power of attorney or a will must be right first time. Firms that grow through self-employed advisers face a familiar question: how to keep quality high as numbers rise.

Westminster Law trained its advisers in person. Its managing director taught a week-long classroom course, a hands-on format that had served the firm well.

Then the network more than doubled in a single year. Every new cohort needed a week of the director's time. So the firm set a clear deadline: adviser training online by 29 June.

The same growth was also stretching drafting, recruitment and client administration.

One course, one onboarded team

The work started with training, the firm's most urgent priority. Jasper Cook recorded lessons on long walks, then turned the recordings into written lessons using Claude. gecco set up the platform and guided the build.

The result is a five-module online course with 50 lessons. Each lesson ends in a quiz with an 85% pass mark, and each module ends in an exam. Learners who finish receive a certificate.

Writing the course drew out 102 points of practice from the director's experience. Each one is now part of the lessons, so every adviser learns the same way.

Alongside the course, every member of the team went through AI onboarding. A group of AI Champions then took further sessions on building and testing their own tools.

Five classroom days became two

The course went live on 21 June, eight days ahead of the deadline. New advisers now complete the online course first, then spend two days in the classroom instead of five.

Since launch, 33 learners have joined the course and eight have earned certificates. Existing franchisees have the whole foundation course open to them as a refresher.

The wider team is building too. A director built a will-checking skill and a profit and loss builder. An estate planner built the lifetime trust questionnaire as a web form. The franchise sales director set up a daily sales summary.

Drafting engine, CRM, people portal

The firm's own drafting engine comes next. Built by its drafting lead and an estate planner, it prepares wills, lasting powers of attorney and trust documents. It is now in its final stage of internal testing.

For years the network has relied on established drafting software. The new engine aims to cut a basic will from about 30 minutes to five. That leaves advisers more time with clients.

gecco is now working with the team on two more builds. A custom CRM will bring leads, calls and client updates into one place. An internal people portal will guide new advisers from first contact to first case.

What we learned

We learned that the person who teaches the work should write the course. Recording lessons aloud, then refining them in writing, kept an expert's voice while making the content consistent.

Onboarding the whole team first made the biggest difference. Once people felt confident, they started building their own tools, and our role shifted to guiding that work.

Firms building several tools at once benefit from one shared view of every project. We now set that up early, rather than after the tools arrive.