Addleshaw Goddard
No of Partners: 182
No of Assistant Solicitors: 380
www.addleshawgoddard.com
Few could doubt that the 1997 merger of Leeds’ Booth & Co with Manchester’s Addleshaw Sons & Latham created a whole that has become considerably greater than the sum of its parts. Since then, the firm has almost doubled its turnover and established itself as one of the country’s premier national practices. 2003 saw it apply its coup de grace when it secured arguably the best London merger of any of the regional firms to date by capturing Theodore Goddard, a respected corporate and banking City middleweight with a high profile media practice.
Addleshaws had opened its own London office in 1999 but its City capability had never caught up with its obvious peers – until now. Now that it has the London credibility it’s always wanted, what does this mean for Leeds?
“Our aim is to be seen as the dominant law firm in Leeds” says partner Adam Bennett, head of the firm’s Leeds strategy group. “It is a very important part of our national strategy to be the best firm in Leeds.”
This strategy, in a nutshell, is to increase its market share in FTSE350 clients, and companies of equivalent size. The firm already acts for 80 of the FTSE350 – including British Airways, Barclays Bank, British Telecom and Sainsbury’s – as well as 160 financial institutions, such as HboS, Standard Life and Yorkshire Banks. It also acts for over 100 public sector organisations, including regional development organisation Yorkshire Forward.
Post-merger, the firm’s 562 lawyers are distributed pretty evenly between the firm’s 3 core locations - Leeds, London and Manchester. Expertise is similarly evenly spread around the firm’s offices which are all full-service as a matter of policy - although the media practice is largely centred on London, while the Leeds office has developed niches in building society work (the firm acts for 39 of the country’s 58 societies) and financial services regulation. Unusually for a large commercial practice, Leeds and Manchester between them also host one of the country’s largest private client teams.
Bennett is adamant that its Leeds and Manchester operations will not simply become low-cost back offices for London. “We have some very important clients in Leeds and we won’t be shifting work to London” Bennetts says. “The merger with Theodore Goddard does not diminish our Leeds and Manchester offices.”
What types of people are Addleshaw Goddard looking to recruit? In the words of the firm - “intellectually strong, commercially focused who have a real passion for providing top-class business advice to clients and who are committed to being leaders in their field.”
And, once you’re there, if you’re looking to get on, you’ll need to get yourself out and about. “To get partnership, you have to be able to win work. Being a back-office grinder doesn’t work” Bennett says.
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