A Manchester practice has created a separate firm to act as a nursery for young lawyers to learn the business.

Gunnerbloom, an offshoot of established firm gunnercooke, will be staffed by junior lawyers who will be given responsibility for generating leads and running the business.

The firm will be based in the Manchester Escalator building, the city’s hub for entrepreneurs, with gunnercooke partner Sarah Goulbourne installed in compliance officer roles. The ‘parent’ firm has made it clear the subsidiary will not be expected to make any profit in its early years.

Gunnercooke runs as a ‘virtual’ firm, with practitioners operating on a franchise basis with access to the firm’s back office. All have at least 10,000 hours’ practising experience. Partners now say they want to find a way to bring through the next generation without changing a successful business model.

Anna Beaumont (pictured, centre), chief executive of gunnercooke, said: ‘We have always felt that junior lawyers would become better rounded advisers if their training focused more on the development of commercial and business skills.

‘We’re very excited about the prospect of building this model in gunnerbloom; creating the next generation of lawyers through tailored training and education.’

The first gunnerbloom lawyers, Ryan Brown and Sarah Bennett, will not specialise for the first three years of their training to ensure they develop wider commercial experience.