In our continuing series of regional focuses, Cameron Timmis examines the legal scene in Sussex, Kent and Surrey


With London on its doorstep, the legal market in the south-east corner of Kent, Surrey and Sussex has struggled in the past to forge a strong identity of its own. But the growth of new economic centres in the region, plus an increasing ability to attract high-quality legal work, means south-east law firms are finally emerging from the capital’s shadow.


Unlike most UK regions, the Kent, Surrey and Sussex market is diffuse, with several competing economic and legal centres including Guildford, Brighton and Tunbridge Wells.


But many now argue that Crawley, a relative newcomer, is the heartbeat of the region. The reason for the West Sussex town’s rising status is its proximity to Gatwick Airport, the centre of the so-called Gatwick Diamond – a diamond-shaped economic hub reaching east/west to Horsham and East Grinstead, and north/south to Reigate and Brighton. According to the West Sussex Economic Partnership, this booming area now accounts for 350,000 jobs, with a gross domestic product of around £10 billion. The town is also home to major household names such as Virgin and GlaxoSmithKline.


‘The airport has driven key advisers and banks into the area; there is a huge pool of industry here and the networks are extremely good,’ says Tony Edwards, managing partner of south-east giant Thomas Eggar, which opened an office in the town 18 months ago, moving and consolidating smaller practices from offices in Horsham and Reigate. ‘Everything we had read, everything we saw, indicated that Gatwick is the centre of commerce in the south-eastern region. If you are going to set up in this area, you want to be where the action is, which is Crawley.’ Its office there is now 160-strong, and there are plans for rapid growth.


Like most firms in the town, Thomas Eggar styles the office as ‘Gatwick’. Mr Edwards says: ‘Crawley is a term recognised in East and West Sussex. Gatwick has national recognition.’


While Gatwick is an important focus for the firm’s commercial work, its 205-strong Chichester headquarters remains the base for a thriving private client practice and is the centre of back-office operations. Like most leading firms in the region, Thomas Eggar combines a large business client base (about 70% of its work) with a substantial private client practice.


DMH Stallard, which has offices straddling Brighton, Crawley and London, is also reaping the benefits of Gatwick’s growing commercial hinterland. ‘Seven years ago, we made a strategic decision to move the hub of our commercial services to Crawley,’ says partner Simon Bellm. ‘That was a very wise decision. There is a growing trend for professional services firms to locate into the area; similarly, most banks have regional centres in Crawley. That – allied to a buoyant economy based largely, but not entirely, on the airport – means Crawley is an ideal business community.’


This does not mean the firm is abandoning its Brighton roots, stresses Mr Bellm. ‘Brighton remains an important office to us, partly because of our historical connections with the town, partly because it houses the vast bulk of our private client offering, and also because we run a lot of back-office functions out of Brighton.’


Not all firms are newcomers in Crawley. Rawlison Butler, a 40-lawyer firm, has been in the town since the 1980s. The full-service firm has a particular focus on pharmaceutical and technology, media and communications work – two sectors that are well represented in the area. ‘The Gatwick Diamond is proving to be quite a Venus Fly Trap,’ quips business development partner Stuart Evans. ‘We’ve seen firms gravitating towards us.’


Beyond the Gatwick Diamond, Surrey county town Guildford remains a significant legal centre, with a cluster of prominent law firms including Stevens & Bolton and two outposts of City firms: Clyde & Co and Charles Russell. In Kent, to the east of the region, the market is also dispersed, with a number of leading firms in Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone.


ASB Law, which has five Sussex, Kent and Surrey offices – in Brighton, Crawley, Horsham, Maidstone and Croydon – will be moving to a new office in Maidstone next month. ‘Between them, with the Thames Gateway, the Olympics, the Thames crossing and Channel Tunnel rail link, we think Kent is going to develop and be a really vibrant market,’ says senior partner Russell Bell.


Brachers, a long-established Maidstone firm, also has high hopes for the Thames Gateway area – the stretch of Thames Estuary extending 40 miles east of London that has been earmarked by the government for £6 billion of investment and 120,000 new homes in the next ten years. ‘Our strategy is to develop our corporate and commercial work in view of the new developments in the Thames Gateway,’ explains managing partner John Sheath. The firm is also hoping that nearby Ashford will prove to be a promising area of growth: ‘For the last ten to 20 years, Ashford has been highlighted as an area of massive development… it’s never quite happened, but there are plans for huge residential areas.’


In Tunbridge Wells, Cripps Harries Hall – Kent’s largest law firm – boasts 35 partners and more than 300 staff. ‘The south-east region is peculiar in lacking one obvious commercial centre,’ says managing partner Jonathan Denny. But he concedes: ‘Tunbridge is probably not the place we would set up Cripps Harries Hall if we were starting from scratch.’ The town is also home to another well-established firm in Thomson Snell & Passmore.


Some firms have a more national than regional focus. Founded in 1991 by Dick Shadbolt, a former senior partner of City firm CMS Cameron McKenna, Reigate-based Shadbolt & Co has a nationwide reputation for construction law. Over the past ten years, the firm has also developed a regional commercial practice. ‘We’re slightly unusual,’ muses partner and head of commercial services, Andrew Trotter. ‘We are both a south-east regional firm and a national construction firm.’


With London and its vast pool of legal expertise being within easy reach, law firms in the region face a particular challenge – to stop clients and potential clients from going to London-based firms for their legal advice. One way firms can counter competition from the capital is by offering lower charge-out rates. Typically, these are 30% below City fees.


‘London is a huge magnet,’ says Mr Denny. ‘Our strategy has been to operate outside London at lower overheads, but increasingly to deal with London work… an awful lot of people realise you don’t have to go to London to get top-quality legal advice.’


Mundays, a 25-partner commercial law firm based in Cobham, Surrey, has a similar strategy – one of its marketing straplines is ‘Capital lawyers on your doorstep’. Chief executive Bob Bruce says: ‘We give exactly the same quality of service to the same quality of clients [as London firms]… we can be very competitive on our rates, but quite clearly competitive rates are not the be-all and end-all – the calibre of our staff is something we are very proud of.’


By operating London offices in tandem with their regional headquarters, some firms hope to combine the benefits of a London office with the cost advantages of a regional base. Shadbolt & Co has grown its London office to 25 lawyers. This, says Mr Trotter, gives the firm ‘additional status and helps people understand that we are dealing with top City and regional work… we like to think we have a bit of the best of both worlds’.


Thomas Eggar and DMH Stallard also both have a substantial presence in London. Both merged with City firms – Thomas Eggar with Church Adams in 1998 and DMH with Stallard in January last year. Thomas Eggar’s office is focused on niche areas such as aviation and insurance litigation, while DMH Stallard has a growing Alternative Investment Market practice in the capital. ‘It has enabled us to gain a strong foothold in the London legal market and serve a broader range of legal needs,’ explains Mr Bellm.


Conversely, ASB Law has decided not to open a London office: ‘Our philosophy is that there is more than enough headroom to focus on in this market,’ says Mr Bell. ‘If you become a London firm, you start charging London rates. Our philosophy is to take work away from London by providing the skills here.’


At Brachers, Mr Sheath says the firm’s proximity to London is a double-edged sword. It enables the firm to attract work from London by offering ‘much lower’ charge-out rates, but is a disadvantage when trying to recruit younger lawyers who are drawn to the bright lights of the capital: ‘We try and counter that by focusing on a career development and the quality of life in Kent.’


Other firms also find the same difficulty in recruiting younger lawyers. Mr Edwards says the firm loses ‘on average five to seven lawyers a year because they want to go to London‘. Not, he adds, ‘because of the quality of the work’, but because ‘they just want to go there.’


But there is an opposite trend at work too, says Mr Edwards, with many lawyers leaving City firms and choosing to work locally rather than face a weary commute into London. This is not a ‘come to the countryside and retire’ approach, he warns – lawyers moving to Thomas Eggar should expect to work as hard as they do in the City – ‘but at least they know they will have their weekends available.’


Cameron Timmis is a freelance journalist