The East Midlands
Economically, the East Midlands, which incorporates Nottingham, Leicester, Derby and Northampton, has long lived in the shadow of Birmingham, which has traditionally enjoyed the lion’s share of major company headquarters, investment and prestige in the Midlands.
By contrast, the East Midlands economic base has always been more diverse than the engineering and manufacturing-dominated West Midlands and, with a few notable exceptions, such as Rolls-Royce and Boots, its companies tend to be smaller.
For the local legal community, this profile has had both advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, it means that the East Midlands has not suffered the peaks and troughs other parts of the country often undergo when key industries hit hard times. The downside, however, is that the big deals are scarcer and the opportunities for the law firms to develop sophisticated plc expertise are correspondingly fewer.
Another feature of the East Midlands has been its success in attracting the UK operations of multi-national companies, which creates good quality commercial work (for example in employment and commercial property) but again does little for those who want to develop blue-chip, rather than SME-oriented, corporate practices. “It’s pretty vibrant, but only up to a level,” says one local managing partner. “The volume isn’t there to develop top-level Plc expertise.”
The result is a virtual ‘glass ceiling’ for ambitious local law firms and, consequently, some of them see at least part of their future growth as being in the western, rather than eastern, part of the Midlands. There have been persistent rumours that Eversheds, the only major national firm with a base in region, will close its Nottingham office.
These rumours have been equally persistently denied by Eversheds, but its decision in 2003 to integrate the management and operation of its Nottingham and Birmingham offices is part of a wider trend amongst professional firms, banks and venture capitalists to treat the Midlands as a single region. This was symbolised most starkly in 2004 by PricewaterhouseCoopers when it moved its East Midlands headquarters out of Nottingham city centre to a greenfield site by junction 21 of the M1, in order to gain better access to both the East and West Midlands. This process has also led some banks and venture capitalists to move their operations from the region to Birmingham.
Within the East Midlands, there is also growing evidence that this effect is contributing to the development of Nottingham as the region’s de facto capital, as evidenced by the renaming of the East Midlands airport as ‘Nottingham East Midlands’, despite it being located closer to Derby.
Some of the major accountants have closed their Derby and Leicester offices. Although regionally-based firms have moved in to fill the gap, the reputations of Leicester and Derby as legal markets has taken a knock in recent years following the withdrawal of Edge Ellison (now part of Hammonds) and Eversheds respectively.
The effect of all this is to make the recruitment market a little more parochial than the West Midlands, although in recent times, no less buoyant. As with the rest of the UK, the larger deals have been in short supply recently, although smaller transactions have remained steady. “The big deals are the icing on the cake,” says a local partner. “There hasn’t been much icing recently, but the cake is definitely still there.”
As a result, the recruitment market has been driven by the region’s middle-tier firms rather than its bigger players, particularly in corporate, although exceptions remain for two of the three region’s traditional strengths – property and construction – thanks in part to extensive regeneration programmes in all three main cities.
Lawyers with experience in these practice areas may also find themselves more exempt from the requirement of many firms that their recruits bring a following, or at least significant market knowledge, with them. As with almost all regional markets, promotional skills are a distinct asset. “Most firms are looking for rounded people with commercial acumen rather than technical lawyers,” says a local recruitment consultant.
That said, the number of London lawyers moving to East Midlands firms has increased in recent years (to Eversheds and Shoosmiths in particular) and the area has proved an attractive lure for those seeking a lifestyle change, being on the edge of Peak District.
The region also has a number of nationally-renowned family law and private client firms, such as Rupert Bear Murray Davies, and departments serving the East Midland’s above-average concentration of high net worth individuals. Family and trusts as well as tax and estate expertise remains in high demand.
Although Eversheds equalised the salary structure between its Nottingham and Birmingham offices when it integrated the operations, salaries at East Midlands firms are typically 10-20% less than the West Midlands. At more senior levels, the salaries are more related to fee income generation (typically three to four times salary) than seniority.
The region’s relative lack of large companies means that in-house choices are relatively limited although the few larger departments there are – for example, Boots, Experian, Capital One, brewers Coors and airline BMI – have been recruiting quite enthusiastically. Those most likely to be successful are those with a general commercial background and, as for private practice, the optimum stage to move is between 3 and 5 years after qualification.
This may all sound that, despite its proximity to the M1 motorway, legal life in the East Midlands is stuck in the slow lane. However, future developments hold out the hope that it will soon become an extremely exciting place to be. The area’s Regional Development Agency has high ambitions for the East Midlands, and, propelled by growth in its biotech, high performance engineering and environmental technology sectors, aims for it to become the fourth UK region to make it into the top 20 the European Union’s 77 regions by 2010 (the other 3 UK regions being the East of England, the South-east of England and London).
Given that the East Midlands presently sits in 35th place, this may prove to be bit of a tall order. However, even if the RDA is only half-successful, then the East Midlands promises to be a dynamic place to practice law in the future.
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