Yorkshire

Leeds has been one of the UK's success stories of the past ten years, firmly establishing itself as a vibrant city that is attractive to businesses and investors. Its growing status as the financial capital of the North has been boosted largely by the success of its law firms, so much so that it is considered by many to be the legal profession's 'second city' outside London, bypassing Birmingham and Manchester with is continual growth. It even has its own 'Magic Circle', or the 'Big Six' as they are known locally: DLA Piper; Addleshaw Goddard; Pinsent Masons; Eversheds, Walker Morris and Hammonds.

Gap in the market

One firm that has used the relative success of the Big Six is Gordons, a Bradford firm that moved into Leeds in 2000. 'We've seen a substantial amount of growth in our Leeds office due to a gap we spotted in the market,' says managing partner Paul Ayre. 'The big national and international firms have pushed up quality and moved on to bigger things, meaning there are opportunities for smaller firms with a good range of skills and resources to come in and fill the gap. There are opportunities to be taken if you are bold and can capitalise on the benefits of being smaller and having the capability to react quickly to situations.'

Gordons offers a full commercial service to its clients in Leeds and, although it is one of the firms to benefit from the 'boom' of the past five years, Ayre admits the 'middle market' is starting to get crowded with firms trying to follow suit. 'I think some firms face quite a challenge to keep their place in the market,' he says. 'Partners are getting older and the younger talent is moving on to the bigger firms where they think they can get higher quality work. There is real pressure on the middle market and I can foresee a fair bit of consolidation.'

Gordons is trying to fight against this with 'heavy investment in the business'. The firm has recently taken on ten new lawyers of one year PQE or less and has made a number of lateral hires at senior level. 'We have very ambitious growth targets and are quite tough on ourselves,' says Ayre. 'Our strategy is to position ourselves alone between the Big Six firms and the mid-market, offering the benefits of personal contact and a simple business model, but with the resources to handle big projects.' While the Leeds office has been growing rapidly for Gordons, the Bradford office '“ its traditional base '“ has maintained a strong presence in the area. 'Bradford itself is an under-lawyered area and a neglected area in professional services, but we have employed a number of younger partners there and they are taking it to another level,' says Ayre. 'We act for most of the big employers in the city and have 110 people stationed in the office, so we feel confident things are moving in the right direction, albeit not at the rate of the Leeds office. However, there are a number of regeneration projects in quite advanced stages planned for Bradford,so I think the whole area has a brighter future than in the past.'

Marketing in Harrogate

Fifteen miles to the north of Leeds is the Victorian spa town of Harrogate, renowned for its International Centre and more traditional features such as Betty's Tea Rooms. One of the town's largest law firms is Berwins LLP, founded in 1993 through a merger of smaller practises, and now boasting over 50 staff and a turnover in excess of £2m. 'We like to think we've changed the face of legal practices in Harrogate,' says managing partner Paul Berwin, who helped found the firm in 1993 when he was a sole practitioner. 'Through a mixture of mergers and acquisition and lots of organic growth, we have grown into one of the top two firms in the town. We have tried to be as leading edge as possible and look not just at the local market, but at the profession as a whole.'

Berwin explains the challenge was to establish a firm that could leapfrog the plethora of high street practices in Harrogate by offering a better service to clients. 'There was a gap in the market for an organisation to be built to deliver legal services in a way that had not been done before.' So the firm embraced IT at an early stage, receiving Lexcel accreditation, the Law Society's Practice Management Standard,as well as joining the Society's Law Management sector early on '“ Berwin says he is 'something like member number 40'.

'Since then, the High Street firms have mostly shrunk or disappeared and many will not survive past their present partners,' he adds. 'They have never kept up with the changes to technology and the profession and think, if they have delivered legal services one way successfully in the past, they can continue to do so in the future.'

Berwins says on its website that it has 'developed a distinct profile in its commercial work and litigation and employment services, in addition to retaining firm foundations in the traditional areas of private client work '“ conveyancing, wills, probate and family law'. 'We try to offer similar services that a high street practice should and have a strong private client side, but it is our commercial arm that has grown the most,' adds Berwin.

The firm's mission, according to its managing partner, is to 'create a firm that that persuades people they don't have to go to Leeds'. He admits that living in the shadow of Leeds is 'interesting' and that it has taken a lot of marketing input to 'get the message across that you can get high quality commercial work down in Harrogate that is more cost-effective than in Leeds and which will be partner-led'.

This 'marketing input' has taken the form of newsletters, seminars, press coverage and building links with business professionals. However, despite this financial outlay to win the battle for work from Leeds, there is a flipside '“ without Leeds' exuberant growth, there wouldn't be the level of work in Yorkshire to sustain so many firms. Berwin concedes: 'A lot of our work comes from outside Harrogate, from rights across north and west Yorkshire. Leeds especially has become quite a prosperous area and lots of these or executives from the big Leeds companies actually live in Harrogate, so bring their work here.'

Despite the Leeds hype, it is worth remembering that, as well as towns like Barnsley, Huddersfield, and Wakefield, cities such as Sheffield and York claim white rose allegiance.

Sheffield service

The Sheffield office of Halliwells is only nine years old, but it has already established a comprehensive commercial law service. Despite being the smallest of the firm's four offices, it now has a staff of 75 and an annual turnover of £4.5m.

The office has also recently launched HL Interactive LLP, a subsidiary business providing a full range of legal property services including remortgage, mortgage repossession, mortgage shortfall and residential conveyancing. The head of the Sheffield office, and Sheffield Businesswoman of the Year 2006, is Suzanne Liversidge, who was given the challenge of building up the office when it opened its doors in 1997.

'When we started up the office ten years ago it was as a niche insurance practice, brought about by client demand,' she says. 'But then the firm took the view that Sheffield had great opportunities for us and expended it to a full service office and put a significant expansion programme in place.'

Liversidge was born and bred in Sheffield and is hugely passionate about both her hometown and her firm's presence there. 'If you look at the skyline in Sheffield, there is nothing but cranes '“ there is a huge amount of regeneration going on, not just here, but in nearby towns like Doncaster and Barnsley. We have seen 26 per cent growth in this office over the past 12 months and have recruited some high calibre lawyers to join us.'

While acknowledging the prominence of Leeds and Manchester in the legal market in the north of England, Liversidge says that opportunities for law firms in these cities are drying up as the market saturates and that Sheffield is the 'one to watch'. 'There are definite gaps in the market here for higher end law firms,' she says. 'Firms like DLA Piper, Nabarro Nathanson and Irwin Mitchell used to be dominant in Sheffield, but they have expanded and there is more and more investment and business coming into the city. There is a real buzz of progression.'

Liversidge also points out that Sheffield's geographical situation is beneficial for reaching out for work in other parts of the country. "We're 40 minutes from Leeds and only an hour from the midlands. Plus, if you need a break from the City, we're only 20 minutes from the Peak District."

With predictions that Sheffield is set to be the next city to undergo radical transformation and Leeds now well-established as a major player in the UK's business market, the beauty of the Yorkshire countryside looks set to be matched by commercial success.

Local view: legal aid in Yorkshire
In the final stages of 2006, the US government finally placed the beloved and fast diminishing polar bear on the endangered species list. No doubt in 2007 there will be a few more additions to this list. What are the prospects of this government placing the legal aid lawyer on that list? Virtually nil I suspect. So what are the causes of this decline in this species? After all, the food source, ie, the clientele, has continued to grow with increasing numbers of crimes being committed, and there have been some 3,000 additional (not replacement) criminal offences placed on the statute book in the last 10 years.

With the introduction of franchising, there was a natural cull of this species when many firms simply made a choice not to continue carrying out legal aid work. As a consequence there was a natural progression towards larger organisations specialising in legal aid work.

These survivors set their stalls out for the survival of the species. More efficient systems were introduced, work loads were substantially increased, rota systems were introduced to ensure that solicitors and their staff were on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year and cases were prepared for disposal at court at the earliest possible opportunity. It seems as if a sustainable future was possible.

But then what happened ? First of all came means testing '“ an ill-thought-out scheme introduced by the government with almost no consultation whatsoever. Indeed, we understand that such consultation that there was, for example with the magistrates' courts, resulted in an almost unanimous feedback of 'it won't work' so in accordance with this government's policy '“ if that is the sort of feedback you receive when you consult, then why bother consulting in the first place - the scheme was brought in.

Secondly, came Carter. 'We accept you are working very efficiently and are grateful to you for that '“ we know what your average costs per case are, but we propose that you now carry out that work for between 10 and 50 per cent less remuneration'. The suggestions are scandalous, eg, up to 16 hours' work at a police station any time of day or night for £136.17 plus £23.83 VAT (a total of £160). No waiting, no travelling, just a flat rate. On 10 January there was a national meeting of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association to discuss means testing, police station fixed fees, best value tendering and similar mind numbing topics.

Less than 48 hours before this meeting took place, the government released information that the Pilot Public Defender Service "provides a better quality of service than private practice according to independent research". How odd that information should be published just 36 hours before the meeting is due to take place.

The press release was timed so as to scare and frighten. Well it doesn't. I say this to the government '“ like an ever-growing body of people in this country, we simply do not believe what you say anymore. It is now up to the legal aid lawyer to stand and fight. He cannot do it on its own. Legal aid lawyers must band together to stand and fight their corner for the sake of the Criminal Justice System, the victims of it, the defendants and for justice herself.

Bill Waddington, Williamsons Solicitors, Hull