In his first speech as prime minister, Andy Burnham promised to ‘take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land’. His government has placed devolution, regional growth and economic rebalancing at the centre of its agenda. 

I trained and qualified as a commercial property solicitor in Northamptonshire and, despite the assumption by parts of the profession that the best work and most ambitious lawyers are in London, I relocated back home to the south-west after just two years’ PQE. 

Now based in Plymouth, I have progressed from solicitor to partner, leading a commercial property team and advising on increasingly complex transactions, all without leaving the region. The legal issues involved have never felt less challenging because the property or client was located in Devon or Cornwall rather than Canary Wharf.

Almost two-thirds of legal services employees are based outside London, demonstrating the scale of the regional legal sector. The economic activity generating this work is increasingly happening outside London too. The West of England Combined Authority has identified a £17bn pipeline of investment opportunities. In Devon, and just a stone’s throw from me, the government has pledged £4.4bn of investment in HMNB Devonport and the wider Dockyard. 

For commercial property lawyers, this matters because legal work follows economic activity. If development, infrastructure, clean energy and regeneration projects are dispersed throughout the country, so will sophisticated legal work. The notion that regional firms deal primarily with simpler transactions becomes harder to sustain. 

Of course, London remains one of the world’s leading legal centres and will continue to be so. This is not about London versus the regions, but recognising where expertise exists and judging solicitors by the quality of their work, not the location of their office. 

Practising in Plymouth has not required me to compromise on the quality of work, my ambition or the types of clients I advise. Instead, it has allowed me to build a career in the place I wanted to live. I expect many regional solicitors feel the same.  

My experience makes me wonder why parts of the profession still view regional practice through a lens that no longer reflects reality. 

 

Georgia Jones
Partner, head of commercial property, Bright Solicitors, Plymouth

 

 

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