About Us
Geoff founded Emphasis on Skills in 1995 together with his colleague, Dave Barney
Emphasis on Skills is now a trading arm of Sara Thorpe Limited Group that specialises in tailor-made programmes for clients. Emphasis and Sara Thorpe Ltd merged early in 2021.
We are probably best known for our specialist work in cognitive interviewing. However we also offer a wide range of professional skills and management training programmes. We now specialise in interviewing skills and other key business skills including management development.
Our main clients are solicitors, including 20 of the 25 largest law firms in the UK. See a list of Law Firms we have worked with.
Emphasis on Skills is accredited by the Law Society to provide training as part of lawyers’ continuing professional development and also as part of the professional skills course for trainee lawyers.
We also work with regulatory councils, corporate clients and police services.
Geoff was previously a trainer at the Metropolitan Police Training College, Hendon, and had many years’ experience as an operational police officer and manager with The Metropolitan Police Service.
You will access over 26 years of learning and development experience.
Why work with us?
Trained over 4000 litigators to use cognitive interviewing
Obtain up to 40% more relevant information about an event or incident
Worked with 20 of the top 25 law firms in the UK
20 years learning and development experience
We trained Eversheds’ public inquiry practice team to successfully apply cognitive interviewing in their work on the Bloody Sunday Inquiry to interview over 1300 witnesses. The partner in charge of their investigation team said, “We couldn’t have done it any other way”.
We worked with Alexander Harris, the medical negligence specialists, who used cognitive interviewing to draw information from over 200 families whom they represented in The Shipman inquiry.