Pinsent Masons
No of UK Partners: 247
No of UK Assistant Solicitors: 485
Other UK Fee-earners: 143
www.pinsents.com
Pinsent Masons may be a Johnny-come lately in the north-west, but it has been more than making up for lost time in the recruitment market since the firm launched its Manchester office. Four former Chaffe Street private equity partners joined the new Manchester office at the beginning of 2002. Within 3 years, this office had 70 lawyers, and now plans to keep on growing.
“Although we didn’t have an office, we already had very good name recognition in the Manchester market,” says the firm’s Manchester head of corporate, Sean Fitzgerald. “If we were serious about being a pan-Northern player, we had to be in Manchester.”
“We didn’t have a specific objective in terms of size when we opened,” Fitzgerald says.
Unsurprisingly, given its origins, the firm has a bias towards corporate work and private equity in particular. It is broadening out quickly, however, to match the full-service profile of the firm’s other UK offices. Pinsent Masons’ presence in Manchester will take another leap forward as the merger with London practice Masons brings with it a Manchester office specialising in energy, projects and construction.
One of the reasons many commentators have described Masons and Pinsents as a good fit is that they were both among the earlier adopters of a sector-based approach. Pinsent Masons’ ‘Chosen Markets’ approach identifies areas of the economy – financial services and insurance, government, manufacturing, real estate, services and technology – within which it sets itself the target of becoming a leading firm. Each chosen market is served by cross-disciplinary teams and, within each market, the firm chooses particular sectors to focus on. For example, the government team has a particular focus on NHS, education, housing, central departments and local departments.
In Manchester, the plan is to continue to grow at the rate at which it can find the best people. It is currently recruiting at all levels and is particularly keen on building the firm from the bottom up in Manchester. “When you start, you need people who will bang the drum and get into the market. But, now that we have been around for little while, we have a good mix of technicians and marketers and we want to continue to have that broad mix,” Fitzgerald says. “We want to remain a proactive practice, but you also need people who can get the job right, so our recruitment strategy is about creating the right balance in all our teams.”
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