The Legal 500: Corporate and commercial law strength revealed
LEEDS dominates corporate and commercial law in Yorkshire with six tier one firms, according to The Legal 500.
DLA Piper is Sheffield’s single top-ranked firm in this area and holds the same status in Leeds with Addleshaw Goddard, Eversheds, Pinsent Masons, Squire Sanders Hammonds and Walker Morris.
Andrew Jackson, Gosschalks and Rollits are considered top of the pile in the east of the region.
The strength of regional expertise in this area is illustrated by the number of firms ranked in the second and third tiers.
Cobbetts, Gordons and Schofield Sweeney join Nabarro in the second tier while Clarion, DWF, Denison Till, Dickinson Dees, Irwin Mitchell, Langleys, Lupton Fawcett and HLW are ranked third.
Every day this week, TheBusinessDesk.com is taking a sector-by-sector look at the region’s legal market in association with RBS.
A concise version of the the Legal 500’s review of Yorkshire and the Humber is also available to download.
RBS regional director Jim McAuley (pictured) said: “The UK market continues to be polarised with relatively low volumes of SME and mid-market corporate finance transaction activity in contrast to a small number of very large, multinational deals.
“This has resulted in a challenging arena for the mainstream UK corporate finance market, mirrored locally in Yorkshire restricting the ability to deliver year on year growth, at present.
“Deals are completing, however, the gestation period for completion is stretching and affecting the volumes of transactions completed, which in turn is having downward pressure on fees generated as a result of increased competition to win these mandates.
“Employment law from our observations and conversations with our own clients continues to be a stable source of revenue as companies still find themselves having to comply with a large amount of regulation in order to do their business.”
The key individuals in the corporate and commercial sector picked out by The Legal 500 are:
Ian Gilbert, Walker Morris
John Holden, Gordons
Robin Johnson, Eversheds
Jonathan Jones, Squire Sanders Hammonds
Yunus Seedat, Addleshaw Goddard
Martin Shaw, Pinsent Masons
Peter Smart, Walker Morris
Pinsent Masons and Squire Sanders Hammonds share the tier one honours for corporate tax in Yorkshire, with Eversheds in tier two and Addleshaw Goddard, DLA Piper, Walker Morris and Watson Burton in tier three.
The Legal 500 says Pinsent Masons’ is rated by its corporate tax clients for its “ability to bring new ideas and go beyond the brief” and notes the increasing international work of the Squire Sanders Hammonds team.
The key individuals in corporate tax are:
John Christian, Pinsent Masons
Mark Simpson, Squire Sanders Hammonds
Andrew Jackson, Rollitts, Nabarro and Irwin Mitchell join DLA Piper and Pinsent Masons in the top tier for employment law.
But employment law is also an area where the specialist focus of some Yorkshire firms shines through with the second tier featuring names such as Beachcroft, Howells, Keeble Hawson, Taylor & Emmet, Thompsons, Wake Smith & Tofields and Langleys.
The key individuals in employment law are:
Christopher Booth, Pinsent Masons
David Bradley, DLA Piper
Paul Cotton, Eversheds
Guy Lamb, DLA Piper
Neil Maidment, Rollits
Rob Riley, Addleshaw Goddard
