Manchester law firm poaches entire team from rival

Manchester law firm JMW has poached an entire team from one of its rivals.

The 14-strong family team from DFW led by David Pickering with Elspeth Kinder and Beverley Jones has moved over.

The appointments come on the back of the most successful year ever for JMW’s family team.

David Pickering joins JMW from DWF where he was national head of the Family Law team for over 10 years.

He joins JMW as head of the private client services which will include family law, wills, trusts and probate and Court of Protection.

David’s main area of responsibility will be in family law where he will continue acting on many of the region’s most notable divorce cases.

David has over 35 years of experience in all areas of family law but is well known for handling complex financial settlements on relationship breakdown and issues relating to children.

Partner Elspeth Kinder will join the team as joint head of family in Manchester along with current head at JMW Michael Chapman, both reporting to David Pickering.

Elspeth works across the whole range of family law issues but with a focus on divorce and related children matters as well as prenuptial and postnuptial agreements.

At the end of April Elspeth took part in Strictly Seashell, which raised over £70,000 for the Seashell Trust, who support children and young adults with complex learning disabilities.

Beverley Jones also joins as a partner and leads JMW’s new office in Liverpool, situated in The Plaza on Old Hall Street, which will concentrate solely on family law work.

Beverley is well known in the Liverpool market place for family law work and she is highly rated for her work on financial remedy proceedings which includes complex trusts and investment funds.

She also advises couples on surrogacy issues.

The family team from DWF consisting of 14 people joined JMW’s existing family team of 18 on 1 May.

Six of the team will be based in the new Liverpool office and 26 in JMW’s office in Spinningfields, Manchester, making a team of 32 in the North West. Both teams have acted for many high net worth individuals, media and sporting personalities and professionals.

Joy Kingsley, Senior Partner at JMW said: “We are delighted to welcome David Pickering and his Family Law team to JMW and we are very pleased they have chosen to make our highly-skilled Family team the largest in the North West.

“The opening of a specialist divorce office in Liverpool is also a further great addition to JMW.

“In our opinion David is the most respected family lawyer in Manchester and he has many strong contacts who will create excellent work opportunities for all departments within JMW.”
Michael Chapman, Joint Head of Family Law at JMW said: “We are all extremely pleased that David and his 13 strong team have joined our family team and we have been very much looking forward to working alongside our new colleagues.”

David Pickering the new Head of Private Client services at JMW said: “Myself and the team are extremely excited to have joined Michael Chapman and his Family Law team at JMW and we believe this a great fit for our team.

“This is a very exciting time for the Family Law team at JMW as being 32 people strong we feel this is an excellent opportunity to expand further. With our extensive team at all levels we can act for any individual in all walks of life.”