A change in the law
There’s no better place to assess the strength of Birmingham’s legal sector than from the imposing Colmore Row offices of Wragge & Co. Quirkily described as a ‘regional monolith’ by Legal500, the firm has long led the city’s big five and surely always will – barring a spectacular series of unlikely mergers.
Senior partner Quentin Poole would never use the word ’monolith’, but is proud of Wragge’s pre-eminence, saying: “We employ 1,000 people in Birmingham and are the largest professional services firm in the city. No one in Manchester or Leeds is anywhere near our size.”
He’s swift to dismiss rumours that a move to 250,000 sq ft of new space in Ballymore’s nearby Snowhill scheme has been delayed by recession. “We have always planned to occupy the offices by 2012, and although there may be slippage of a few months it will be nothing more,” says Poole. “We signed for our current offices during a boom, but came here in ‘bust’. This time we deliberately signed our lease for a time when the economy would be on its way up.”
Wragge’s corporate and M&A teams are finding less work, which will take turnover and fee income down during 2009, but Poole says public sector activity is ticking over, including a major MoD contract for work on the navy’s next two aircraft carriers.
Adrian Bland’s real estate team had a busy first quarter and, despite the slowdown in the US, significant work has come in from sectors such as software and intellectual property.
Poole reckons Wragge’s US clients, which include Heinz, Starbucks and Ford Motor Co, will contribute between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of this year’s activity.
The same air of optimism pervades No5 Chambers, not least because the Court Service has opened an administrative court in Birmingham, after years of campaigning by regional practices. It can hear any judicial review – examining decisions, or actions, by a public body – which would previously have gone to the main court in London.
Ralph Lewis QC, No5’s head of chambers, is bullish about prospects for immigration and human rights-related work for his group; the UK’s largest independent set of barristers.
“We have a 28-strong team of specialists, led by Abid Mahmood, who came to us from No8 Chambers,” he says. “Lawyers and their clients are fed up of having to get on the train to London to have these cases heard, and I’m sure we will be busy at the new court.”
Later this year, No 5 is promoting itself, and Birmingham’s legal community, by sponsoring a major conference in India. Lewis says October’s ‘Gateway to the Future’ event is more about establishing long-term links than picking up lucrative briefs from the subcontinent’s insular legal community.
“Could I say it will lead to work? I suspect I couldn’t, but as a country India is something you simply can’t afford to ignore,” he says.
The same can surely be said of Freeth Cartwright, which has long dominated its side of the region, but finally established a Birmingham presence at the end of 2007. Its subsequent expansion has prompted a move from One Victoria Square to Colmore Row, as managing partner Richard Beverley strengthened his team with hires from Mills & Reeve DLA Piper and Pinsent Masons.
“It’s been easier to recruit high-calibre people in the current conditions than it would have been in an upturn,” he says. “We’re not looking to strip out costs, but to add value. We took Lee Clifford from Pinsents to add weight to our corporate finance team, and real estate is another area for expansion.”
Freeths may have chosen to expand from its East Midlands heartland, via Birmingham and Manchester, but Cartwright King has established a national reputation from offices in Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and Sheffield.
The practice was set up ten years ago as a boutique criminal firm, by three Freeths partners who reckoned their niche deserved a stand-alone business. The venture has expanded to 18 partners and 100 staff in the intervening decade, with the firm acquiring major corporate customers, impressive public sector work and many individual clients. The firm has retained its original focus, representing senior executives who face driving bans or worse, and even has a specialist site for those accused of driving offences.
