Legal news: Pinsents; Weightmans & more

NATIONAL law firm Pinsent Masons said its merger last year with McGrigors fuelled a 40% hike in turnover to £309m for the year to 30 April.

The increase, up from £221m before the McGrigors deal, also came in a year of international growth at the firm, which has an 180-strong office in Manchester.

Pinsents has opened in Paris, Munich, and Istanbul and in the Far East grown its team in Shanghai and launched a TMT practice in Singapore.

The firm has also won several new clients in the past year, including the energy regulator Ofgem and FTSE 250-listed infrastructure group Balfour Beatty.

Managing partner David Ryan said: “The firm has changed dramatically over the past 12 months and we have made significant investment into the business. We continue to see strong demand in global sectors such as energy, infrastructure and advanced manufacturing and technology, particularly in litigation, tax, competition and regulatory. The firm has moved forwards in financial services, with strong growth in insurance and restructuring.”

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LIVERPOOL-based national law firm Weightmans is celebrating two  public sector tender wins.

The firm’s  healthcare team has been appointed to all three ‘lots’ of the NHS Litigation Authority’s (NHS LA) new panel following an extensive review and procurement process.

The panel consists of three lots; clinical liabilities, non-clinical liabilities, and regulatory, health and disciplinary law. Weightmans is one of five firms to be appointed to all lots.

Meanwhile Weightmans’ education team secured wins in all six lots in the North and North Wales area on the APUC (Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges) legal services tender. The firm has also been appointed to all lots in the Central, Eastern and Southern areas.

Andrew Cooper, director of the firms’ public sector group said: “Working with the public sector is very much part of Weightmans’ heritage. These excellent results will enable us to continue to provide high quality value for money legal services and business solutions to public bodies at a time when these are more important than ever.”

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CORPORATE partner Roger Hart led a team from Addleshaw Goddard advising 2ergo, the AIM-listed technology group on a £3.1m fundraising via a discounted shares placimg.

Alongside Mr Hart were: Duncan Wilson, Chris Hardman, Michael Carter, Kate McGough and Dilpa Raichura.

Comenting on the deal he said: “”While small, this transaction was both important and complex. Given the unrivalled experience which our Manchester team has of listed company transactions, we were therefore the logical choice to help 2ergo with it.”