Nexus
No of Partners: 5
No of Assistant Solicitors: 13
www.nexussolicitors.co.uk
Nexus opened its doors in 2000 with the intention of taking the stuffiness out of the practice of law. The firm launched with 5 partners from larger firms, including Tony Brook and Chris Pugh from Berrymans Lace Mawer, Jamie Lloyd from Beachcroft Wansbroughs and Des O’Driscoll from Turner Parkinson. In 2002 Nick Marshall joined as a partner in the corporate team, followed more recently by Terry Osborn in 2004. While they initially promised that their growth would be “cautious”, they achieved one of the highest turnover growth rates in Manchester in 2004 at nearly 19%.
The firm has a number of plc clients across the country, but Nexus’s focus is on corporate and commercial work for local owner-managed businesses, high net worth individuals and other SMEs, for which it also offers tax, commercial property, employment, IP and litigation services. Its sports and media practice straddles all types of clients which include a number of football clubs and Premiership footballers, including local hero Rio Ferdinand, for whom it acted on the 3 year sponsorship deal with Ben Sherman signed in 2003.
Nexus’s size and low cost base, it says, means that it can offer a more partner-led service to this sector. However, the main difference prospective recruits will notice is its different approach to working life – progressive, contemporary and no-nonsense – and its dress code, or rather lack of one. Indeed, prospective lawyers may even end up donning their overalls, if partner Jamie Lloyd is to be taken at his word.
“Generally speaking the legal profession is over-stuffy, over-conceited, over-full of its own importance and tradition,” he told the Manchester Evening News in 2004. “At the end of the day, wearing a pinstripe suit and a spotty tie doesn’t make you a better lawyer,” he added. “We're all young-ish and casual clothes reflect the way we work with our clients. A lot of people think unless they're putting a suit on they're not in a work mode. But if you can't motivate yourself to work any other way than by putting on a suit then it's a fairly sad state of affairs.”
“We’re just a service provider and we’re here to provide a service to our clients in the best way we possibly can.”
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