In the latest of our regional focuses, Grania Langdon-Down assesses how south-west firms are redrawing the legal map

Bristol, with the second highest GDP of any city in England – 23% above the national average – is well known as a thriving legal centre. But, as the gateway to the south-west, does the city cast its shadow over the region, or do the other main legal centres hold their own?


Top-50 law firm Burges Salmon makes a virtue out of being a single-site office firmly rooted in Bristol. Managing partner Guy Stobart is in no doubt about the answer. ‘Does Bristol overshadow the rest of the south-west legal market? Absolutely. Bristol and its sub-region dominates. There is no other word for it, for good or ill. I know Devon and Cornwall hate it, but the economic activity around here is massively more than down there.’


Unsurprisingly, those firms based in Exeter, Plymouth and Truro, the region’s other main legal centres, put the case rather differently, while several firms choose to enjoy the benefits of both.


Jane Lister is managing partner of Foot Anstey, which has 33 partners and 150 fee-earners based in Exeter and Plymouth, as well as Taunton, where the office has doubled in size since it merged with six-partner firm Alms & Young last May.


‘We don’t see the need to open an office in Bristol. We are here for the region, though we also have national clients, such as the newspaper industry. We might look at something in Dorset or Cornwall but we want to retain this ethos of being a south-west-based firm.


‘The region has taken a long time to become buoyant economically, but government organisations and local authorities are managing their money better. Exeter and Taunton are both full of development, while Plymouth is covered in cranes. It is coming good for this part of the world and we are glad we are here.’


Chris Lingard is managing partner of the five-partner Cornish business law firm Follett Stock in Truro, which has grown 25% a year for the past five years, to a projected £2 million turnover this year. He does not anticipate moving into the Bristol market, which he says is ‘fairly saturated’.


He adds: ‘We aspire to be a regional practice, so we have plans in the next two years to open an office in Exeter. We believe the market is ripe for us, as there is an element of complacency there. We also believe we can service Plymouth from there, though not vice versa.’


Michelmores in Exeter, with 28 partners, about 85 fee-earners and a turnover of £11.5 million last year, has doubled in size over the past four years and expects to do the same again in the next four. It moved slightly more than a year ago to a business park on the outskirts of the city, after 120 years in essentially the same building in the city centre – where current senior partner Will Michelmore’s great-grandfather set up the firm in 1887. It has an office in Sidmouth, about 12 miles along the coast, and one in London, which has two partners and three lawyers, with plans to recruit three more lawyers.


Practice director Andrew Lovell says the firm’s work is 80% regional and 20% national. The commercial property practice accounts for about 40% of turnover, with strong departments in private client, company/commercial and litigation. ‘Bristol is a very competitive market to break into. It is very well lawyered and we are not in a bursting hurry to do it. Exeter is a significant legal market, so we don’t feel overshadowed at all.’


However, Tim Hayden, who joined Clarke Willmott as a trainee in 1979 and is now chairman, reckons Bristol does dominate the south-west. ‘But in terms of distinct practice areas, private client and agriculture would be a strong factor through most of the big firms in the region. For instance, we do Devon and Cornwall’s agricultural work for the National Farmers Union from the Taunton office.’


The firm, which has 65 partners, 280 fee-earners and a turnover of £33.4 million last year, started in Taunton, before opening offices in Bristol, Southampton and Birmingham, largely driven by the demands of national clients. Among its strengths are private client, property and development, planning, family and a nationally ranked sports department. ‘Our game plan is to build up our offices so they all have about 250/300 people, which we have already achieved in Taunton,’ he explains. ‘We are in expansionist mode.’


Simon Rous is head of corporate and chairman of Ashfords, formerly part of Bevan Ashford, which split into Ashfords and Bevan Brittan 18 months ago. With a turnover last year of £19.5 million, it has 44 partners, 260 fee-earners and offices in Plymouth, Exeter, Tiverton, Taunton, Bristol and a serviced office in London for closing deals. Ten years ago, the firm also founded an international network, ADVOC, which now has 50 members.


Mr Rous says the Bristol office, which is growing fast in commercial, contract, corporate, planning and insolvency, was opened after the demerger and is proving a useful foothold into the market in the north and south-east. ‘Bristol is a good platform from which to win work elsewhere. Also, as one of the largest firms in the south-west, we can hardly not be in the capital.


‘Bristol probably does overshadow the region in that large deals will be led by accountancy practices in Bristol, which will want to give the work to lawyers across the street. But my personal market as a corporate lawyer tends to be south-west and London, and I leapfrog Bristol because I don’t have such a price advantage there.’


Ashfords’ largest office, and effectively its headquarters, is in Exeter, where it recently moved to a new building with capacity for about 400 people. It is largely corporate/commercial, with a big domestic conveyancing call-centre operation. The Plymouth office has a heavy public-sector base, acting for local authorities, government agencies and charities.


The Tiverton office is ‘surprisingly successful and profitable in a glorious Queen Anne building’, Mr Rous says. It has a big inheritance tax and estate management practice. Taunton is a mixed practice of commercial, commercial property, residential conveyancing and employment law.


Mr Rous describes the firm as highly mobile. ‘We are, by and large, a young practice and use as a distinct marketing advantage the fact that low overheads here enable us to pitch for work in London and elsewhere. I spent 12 years with Clifford Chance and yet my charge-out rate here is only £190.’


Ian Pawley retires in April after 37 years with Stephens & Scown, the last five as managing partner. With 28 partners and turnover of nearly £12 million, it is the largest firm based in both Devon and Cornwall. The firm was founded in St Austell, adding offices in Truro and Exeter, where it is now headquartered. It deals with corporate, commercial property, some private client and residential conveyancing. It also has a large family team, plus a specialism in planning, which arises from the firm’s history in dealing with local mineral work.


Mr Pawley says: ‘It is possible some clients from Devon and Cornwall occasionally look to Bristol, but we are not overshadowed by the city. I feel quite comfortable that legal firms in the two counties can provide the bulk of clients’ needs.’


Bhavani Hogarty is head of commercial property at Battens, which is celebrating its 300th anniversary this year. Last summer, it became one of the first firms in the region to embrace full incorporation as a limited company, floating off its volume conveyancing and volume personal injury businesses, and selling a satellite office in Crewkerne. It has offices in Yeovil, Sherborne, Dorchester and Weymouth, 13 directors and 60 fee-earners. One of its major clients is Westland Helicopters.


She says: ‘The area between Exeter, Bristol and almost down to Southampton [is] pretty much clear for a firm like ours. We have Battens Private Client and Battens Commercial, made up of specialist teams in commercial property, planning, employment, construction, property litigation and company/commercial, as well as commercial litigation. I can honestly say there is no one else in this region that has that.’


As a region, the south-west has been largely left alone by national firms. Burges Salmon and Osborne Clarke are the two main players in Bristol, though Osborne Clarke promotes itself as a European firm with offices in the UK, Germany and the US, while the Osborne Clarke Alliance has offices in a further nine countries across Europe.


Mr Stobart, an ‘émigré’ from magic circle firm Slaughter and May, joined Burges Salmon in 1983. Essentially a corporate/commercial law firm, its key clients are corporates and institutions, although it also does work for private clients ‘with the sort of wealth a lot of corporates would die for’, he says.


With 62 partners, 320 fee-earners and £45 million-plus turnover, the firm has a base for client meetings in London but has no plans to open other offices, even though 75% of its work is not connected with the south-west. Mr Stobart says: ‘Being a single-site office works on many levels: in terms of recruitment, as we don’t want to give out the message that people may come to Bristol but then be sent somewhere else; it is much less costly than managing a firm over a number of sites; and, most tellingly, the message from clients is that it works for them.’


Mr Stobart does not think there is a glass ceiling in the work firms outside London can win. But if there is, ‘we are continuously pushing it higher. It is a big market. We have less than half a per cent of the turnover of the top 100 law firms. But our recent projects include the Crown Estate panel, which we took out of London, as well as advising the Ministry of Defence on the restructuring of the £2.5 billion Skynet 5 private finance initiative contract’.


Banking and restructuring specialist Victor Tettmar, who joined Bond Pearce as a trainee in 1986, took over as managing partner in February. He also feels more work is coming out of London and the glass ceiling is ‘moving up’, pointing out that his firm recently won a contract to provide property legal work for the BBC, and secured a place on Virgin’s legal panel.


The firm has offices in Bristol, Plymouth – from which it covers Cornwall, Exeter, London and Southampton – and has ‘touch-down facilities’ in Cardiff, Leeds and Edinburgh. With just under 70 partners and 300-plus fee-earners and turnover of £40 million, the top-60 law firm positions itself as a leading UK commercial firm with a strong regional footprint.


Michelmore’s Mr Lovell says his firm is not ‘conscious of lots of deals passing us by along the M5 and up the M4 to London. The south-west is an interesting economy with a few very big players who would, I suspect, tend to buy their legal services and pretty much everything else from London. But immediately below that is a very well-spread economy. Exeter has had some fantastic years recently, with the Met Office coming here and about 1,300 jobs being created.’


While the region is doing well economically, with inward investment which, in Cornwall, has been boosted by Objective One European funding bringing in some £800 million over the past six years, the future of publicly funded work is a big issue.


Legal aid is one of three key sectors for Foot Anstey, alongside its work for private clients and the business community. The firm has one of the largest children law teams in Devon with 27 lawyers. Ms Lister says fears that the Carter review will lead to smaller legal aid firms going to the wall ‘has happened by default already in this region. Lots of them have stopped doing legal aid because they can’t make it pay, which is why the government needs firms like ours’.


Helen Davies is one of four Law Society Council members for the region – Bristol now has its own council member. She also highlights legal aid as an important issue. One of four partners with Peters Langsford Davies in Launceston, her firm is a general high street practice, evenly split between private client, property and litigation. ‘We stopped down legal aid work in the late 1990s, though we still do a bit of publicly funded family work.’


When it comes to recruitment, Mr Lovell says: ‘I would love to say it was no problem. But there are areas, such as commercial property, where I wouldn’t mind a small coachload of really good candidates pitching up outside. Quite a lot of recruits come from London, some are trailing spouses, and some come from local firms, although there is an unwritten rule that you don’t poach on your own doorstep.’


Battens takes on four trainees a year. Ms Hogarty says: ‘The difficult area is newly qualifieds of up to two years, as the brightest ones want to head for the city lights. What we have done is try to get high-calibre trainees and keep them.’


She joined the firm 18 months ago from City giant Lovells. ‘My son was about to start prep school in London and we thought if we didn’t move now, we never would. I initially thought I was coming to some backwater, and there is a big contrast in the work, but the variety here is much more exciting.’


Ms Lister says it is harder to attract people to Plymouth than to the Exeter and Taunton offices. ‘We are looking to double our turnover in five years – from £11 million last year – so one of the things we have done is expand our trainee solicitor recruitment programme to take on 12 trainees a year. Burgeoning house prices haven’t helped. A newly qualified solicitor is paid about £30,000. There is a big gap between us and London but I still think lawyers are very well paid.’


It is generally difficult to recruit in Cornwall, says Ms Davies, because salary levels are not very high, unlike the property prices. ‘When I did my training in the late 1980s, there were ten trainees in the whole of Cornwall. Depressingly, it is much the same now.’ However she hopes that Plymouth University, which is going to run the legal practice course from September, ‘will be positive for this end of the south-west’.


Mr Rous says Ashfords likes to recruit lawyers who have sharpened their skills in the City, made money on their house and are thinking about a family. ‘We are still able to offer attractive work and big clients without having to work quite as hard as in London. Our philosophy is that we work harder than the City firms when the deal is on but, between deals, we take time to have fun – from here to the sea is ten minutes.’


Grania Langdon Down is a freelance journalist