There is a lot more to Manchester than united, city and coronation street. This thriving metropolis now claims to host England's biggest legal market outside London.Last night's UEFA Champions League final will have seen many members of Manchester's vibrant legal and commercial community knock off work a little earlier than usual. But they will doubtless make up the time later, because their city is experiencing rapid expansion in this particular sector.

Manchester has seen huge development in its commercial and legal market, with financial and professional services experiencing the biggest growth in the north-west over the past decade, according to new research. The city also boasts a number of community-focused legal initiatives, including a new £160 million Civil Justice Centre. Its legal education sector has also been given a boost with news that the College of Law arrives in the city with a new outlet next year.

Manchester has always been a centre of commerce and industry with a defined place on the world's trade maps. With the decline in manufacturing industries and, more recently, engineering, the city reinvented itself as a centre of professional and financial prowess, attracting financial, banking and commercial businesses to the north-west. The industrious bee, portrayed on Manchester's Coat of Arms and a symbol of industry from the 19th century, has become a busy post-industrial professional.

The legal sector has been both a cause and effect of this boom, and the city has welcomed a number of new faces: in the 1990s and early 2000s, the influx has included Hammonds, Eversheds, Pinsent Masons (a product of a merger in 2004), DLA Piper and Irwin Mitchell. They have joined the more established Manchester-based firms, such as Halliwells, Pannone, Cobbetts and Weightmans. And still they come: brand new entrants include insurance law firm Kennedys, Freeth Cartwright and Mills Reeve.

According to Ian Austin, managing partner at Halliwells, the city's largest firm (though actually based outside Manchester) these firms have come to the north-west because they are going where the clients and their businesses take them' - and, he adds, 'because they want to watch decent football.

Helen Ridge, head of the Manchester office of international law firm Pinsent Masons, agrees: 'As a law firm you can draw a big circle around the region, and you are reaching out to a large, vibrant economy.'

Another dimension to the city's attractiveness is its European bent, as Michael Shaw, managing partner at Cobbetts, explains: 'Manchester has always been incredibly cosmopolitan, and European companies are getting involved in food manufacturing and brewing, alongside financial services. We are well-connected to the rest of Europe here. I can get to Amsterdam a damn sight quicker than I can get to London.'

Many commercial firms such as Halliwells and Pinsent Masons have moved or are moving to the new business district, Spinningfields. This downtown development, compared to Paris's La Deacute fense by the Financial Times, is also the site of the new Civil Justice Centre, where Manchester's family, county and high courts and commercial courts now reside. It is also home to a separate magistrates court, testimony to the fact that Manchester’s brave new world is not just about commercial activity.

Though locals have nicknamed it 'the filing cabinet' because of its unevenly staggered levels, the Manchester Civil Justice Centre, with its 47 court and hearing rooms and 76 consultation rooms, has been a huge success. Since opening in October 2007 it has been welcomed by lawyers, judges and the public because the facilities are hugely superior to those provided previously by the various court buildings. Sue Lenihan, its head of operations, says that during consultation on the centre a 'decent cafe&' was high on users' priority lists.

The Civil Justice Centre also has room for the new in-house small claims mediation service. Piloted over the past couple of years in Manchester and other areas nationally, the service provides a voluntary scheme for claims under £5,000. So far it is up to about 40 mediations a month, with the overwhelming majority of cases settling. Feedback has produced an impressive satisfaction rate. Its current officer James Rustidge, who has been involved from the start of the pilot, says the scheme works 'if it is voluntary'. Many claimants and defendants will go for it because small claims can be expensive, particularly in relation to the low value of most of them. 'A lot of the cases are about repair, decorating, minor damage to property, and issue or hearing fees are comparatively expensive,' he says.

Rustidge has helped pioneer the use of telephone mediations. 'Small claims can originate anywhere, such as over holiday lets, so parties can be very far away,' he says. 'Telephone mediation is one solution. You would be surprised at how in-depth the telephone conversations get. Even if you are on the phone, parties get the opportunity to raise all the issues. These are heartfelt claims; it is only partly about the money.'

The Civil Justice Centre is also proud of its facilities for vulnerable witnesses, who tend to be children, and has six on-site suites with separate entrances for witnesses to use. This is appropriate in a city which has a strong tradition in child care and family law, as Michael Green, who runs Green & Co, a leading family law legal aid practice in Manchester, explains: 'We have an excellent number of family law-oriented judges. The courts and child care practitioners, solicitors, local authority solicitors and counsel are all very highly regarded. The centre provides a sensitive approach to justice, which is right and necessary because these are very vulnerable people with a lot of problems.'

Firms such as Green & Co are the unhappy faces on the Manchester legal scene, much like most legal aid firms across the country. Though there are a number of legal aid practices providing family law or crime services, such as Burton Copeland and Tuckers Solicitors (the two largest in the city), they are struggling. Franklin Sinclair, senior partner at Tuckers, is pessimistic about the future. 'There are just too many legal aid practices fighting too few cases at the moment,' he says. 'Crime just isn't strong enough any more. We've had to target more lucrative work - private crime, road traffic cases, money laundering and fraud. We've had to restructure. Morale is very low.'

Green has a similar message: 'There is a good deal of uncertainty over child care public law and we have had to extend our services within family law.'

To combat this gloomy outlook, the Manchester Law Society is running various initiatives to support small and medium-sized law firms in the area, as its executive director Fran Eccles-Bech explains: 'The Society is starting a series of meetings to combat the isolation that smaller firms often feel, and to encourage them to come together. We'll start off with a meeting about the Legal Services Act and its implications.' As legal aid firms in particular are seeing profit margins shrink, the Manchester Law Society is also arranging IT roadshows, which will 'go out into the suburbs to show firms how to broaden their use of IT, for instance in managing cashflow or client care'.

Manchester's present and future as a leading legal hub is also secured by the number and calibre of its legal education providers.

Undergraduates can study law at the University of Manchester, but the city is also home to Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), which has a 'complete law school', according to Miceal Barden, head of the School of Law there. He says: 'We have undergraduates and graduates here, so you can do everything from foundation level through to the LPC or BVC, and beyond onto postgraduate research.'

MMU, with its 1,500 law students, reflects the entrepreneurial spirit of Manchester with a new course in legal management, organised by David Amos, a programme director at the school. It all started when Fiona Woolf and I were talking about the challenge that lawyers face when moving from fee-earner to partner, he says. She asked me if MMU ran a course focusing on that challenge, and we had to admit we didn't. But it started us on a track towards building a course which is a balance between business and law.' The course will cover not only leadership and management issues, but also 'trends in the legal profession', and a module to encourage students to look in-depth at their own firm in the context of changes within the profession. This will, for instance, focus students on how to exploit the opportunities of the Legal Services Act for the benefit of their firm. This element may also attract non-lawyers eager to understand the implications of so-called 'Tesco law'.

The College of Law, meanwhile, recently announced it is opening a new centre in Manchester in September 2009. Tricia Chatterton, north-west regional director of the college, told the Gazette why they chose the city: 'There have been a number of reports which have demonstrated to us that Manchester's professional services sector is growing. This is a thriving community and a very real competitor to London in terms of the quality of work available. And it is a European city, not a regional city.'

Alongside the GDL, the LPC and PSC, which it has always provided, the college will also work in tandem with a number of Manchester-based firms such as Cobbetts and Halliwells to provide 'LPC Plus', in which students are taught electives in firm-specific groups and from their firm's perspective.

As befits its motto, concilio et labore - loosely translated as 'wisdom and effort' - the city of Manchester and its busy population combine an upbeat ethic with plenty of experience and history behind them. Much like a certain couple of football teams.

Polly Botsford is a freelance journalist

A winning team

Not long before Manchester United clinched a record tenth Premier League title, the club appointed its first legal panel - and it is huge. The knights at the Old Trafford round table include Brabners Chaffe Street, which now has one of the largest sports law practices in the country, after James Chapman & Co joined in 2006 - for sports commercial and general commercial work, dispute resolution, real estate, and 'football matters', as a spokesperson for the club enigmatically describes them. The club's charity, the Manchester United Foundation, is to be represented by Brabners Chaffe Street's charity team.

Then there is Wiggin, a specialist London media firm, advising Manchester United companies, including MUTV, on media law issues. These are complemented by Halliwells, new to the table and 'lead advisers' on IT matters, and Pinsent Masons, who are 'lead advisers' on data-protection issues - partner Rosemary Jay has a national reputation as a data protection specialist.

Beachcroft will continue to be 'lead advisers' on employment and licensing work, while Allen & Overy will continue to advise Manchester United and its Red Football parent companies on corporate finance.

Casts of thousands

Around 4,500 solicitors are keeping busy within Greater Manchester, with more than 3,000 in the city centre alone. There are 281 private practice firms in the area, a statistic which has led Manchester Law Society to declare it the 'second legal city' in England and Wales.

Manchester is home to leading national and international firms such as Eversheds, Pinsent Masons, and DLA Piper - and they are all doing very nicely at present. Pinsent Masons has recorded double-digit growth nationally and has seen staff levels grow by 20% in the Manchester area.

There are a number of firms which have a main office in Manchester but own national reputations, such as Cobbetts, Pannone and Halliwells. Pannone made a name for itself as The Sunday Times' top law firm to work for in its '100 best companies' survey. Halliwells has doubled in size in the past four years, with turnover growing from £36 million in 2003/04 to £90 million currently. Weightmans, another Manchester-based firm, has announced record turnover of £50 million for 2007/08 - an increase of 14% on the previous year.

Most firms agree that Manchester's legal market boasts a wide range of expertise and is not particularly hung up on niche areas. But Pinsent Masons says that it has a particular focus on the university sector, representing establishments such as the universities of Manchester and Salford, while Pannone, for instance, still retains a substantial private client practice.