Addleshaw Goddard
No of Partners: 182
No of Assistant Solicitors: 380
Other Fee Earners: 222
www.addleshawgoddard.com
Addleshaw Goddard’s legacy Manchester firm, Addleshaw Sons & Latham Tatham & Son was the undisputed market leader in Manchester during the 1980s and early 1990s. Other national firms, notably Eversheds and DLA Piper, may have muscled in on the market on the last decade or so, but Addleshaws remains (just) the leading corporate firm in the city.
The merger with Leeds’ Booth & Co in 1997 did much to keep it there as did, the firm claims, its 2003 merger with Theodore Goddard. Those who hoped that the London merger might make Addleshaws take its eyes off the market in the North-West will probably be disappointed to learn that the firm plans to be 50% bigger again by 2009. The London office presently houses 214 of the firm’s overall qualified strength of 491.
The firm describes its key strengths in Manchester as its corporate, banking, litigation, property, PFI, employment, media and technology and sport. Manchester remains key to the firm’s strategy of targeting FTSE350 companies (it already acts for 80 nationwide, including Barclays, BA, BT and Sainsbury’s), thanks to the number of blue-chip companies which are already clients of the office including BAE Systems, United Utilities, British Vita, Manchester Airport, MyTravel, N Brown Group, Nord Anglia Education and PZ Cussons Plc.
Winning and keeping this calibre of client, Addleshaws says, is down to its ability to provide City-calibre expertise in both its regional offices, its project management skills and attracting the best and most motivated people in the market.
The people the firm is interested in recruiting are those who are at the top of their game “intellectually strong, commercially focused who have a real passion for providing top-class business advice to clients and who committed to being leaders in their field.”
Possibly the only real chink in Addleshaws armour is the firm’s lack of international network compared with some of its national rivals. Efforts in this direction have been rather half-hearted over the years. In 2003, the firm called a halt to any prospect of international expansion to allow it to work on integrating the merger with Theodore Goddard. For the time being, it relies on a referral network to handle international instructions. Many commentators, however, have said that Addleshaws secured the best London merger of any of the national firms. Who’s to say that it won’t do the same again when it turns its attention overseas?
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