Gateley’s Waldie looks ahead after ‘landmark’ year

ROD Waldie, head of Manchester office at national law firm Gateley, is upbeat on future prospects after a challenging last 12 months.

A year ago he was at Halliwells – the high profile firm which after months of speculation over its future succumbed to administration last July – and saw its assets split between three firms, Hill Dickinson, Barlow Lyde & Gilbert and HBJ Gateley Wareing.

Waldie, a real estate partner, was part of the business acquired by Birmingham-based HBJ Gateley Wareing.

Looking back he says: “It has been a landmark year, obviously challenging, and tough, but in other ways incredibly refreshing and I have learned an awful lot.

“If someone had said on July 20 last year that things would be the way they are now, we would have been very pleased to take that on”

Phase one of his task – managing the firm was new to him – was to look after the people and clients – which he feels has been achieved with little attrition of either.

Phase two is about building the brand of the firm, which has now taken the simpler name of Gateley, he said.

“I think the people, we are today at 177, compared with 181, have unified behind a common purpose of getting behind the Gateley acquisition, and bedding it down.

“From this regard morale has been good. We would not have performed as well as we have done as a firm it had not been.

“The strategy was to anchor the people and the clients – and the loyalty of both has been overwhelmingly positive. There’s been very little leakage.

“We now have a new brand so the next key initiative is to embed the Gateley brand in the Manchester market, and make it as well known as the other major commercial law firms.” 

Waldie says the move to Ship Canal House on King Street six weeks after the administration of Halliwells was an important milestone.

“It meant a fresh start and was an important physical break from the past.”

So what of the past? Ever since the Halliwells administration there have been a string of negative headlines about legacy issues on a variety of subjects.

Asked when he expects matters to be concluded, he says: “I don’t think it’s possible to say when the legacy issues will disappear. What I have to do is manage those issues – and they are being managed and taken very seriously.

“It’s important though that they are managed in a way that is not too big a drain on resources, so we have a small group of people dealing with them so others are not distracted.”

He says the bosses of Gateley are pleased with the progress the firm has made since the acquisition.

“The national senior partner and managing partner sit on our board – and are satisfied with the progress. From a national point perspective the investment in Manchester was a very significant event.”

At present Gateley Manchester is a separate legal entity to the rest of the firm, but this will not remain the position in the long term.

“We were set up as separate LLP due to the timescales of doing the deal last year, but I expect this will be collapsed into the main Gateley LLP before too much longer.”

From a trading point of view he said the firm’s pensions and employment teams had been the ‘star performers’ while real estate and commercial had fared well too.

“I’m cautiously optimistic, the market is still tough though, but we have been active – our corporate team has advised on deals worth more than half a billion pounds.”