North-west passageThe staging of the Commonwealth Games in 2002 will symbolise Manchester's rebirth after the 1996 IRA bomb.

Neil Rose meets the lawyers who are enjoying the city's resurrectionIf self-help gurus ever need an example of how to turn a negative into a positive, they should look no further than Manchester.Manchester has had things tough in recent years, but from the metaphorical ruins of the failed Olympic Games bid and the actual ruins of the 199696 IRA bomb, a vibrant city is rapidly emerging.

Money that flowed from the Olympic bid helped fund the city's tram network while the recovery from the bomb is still ongoing, evidenced by building works all over the centre.

The Commonwealth Games in 2002 is fuelling this modernising rush further as Manchester aims to present an exciting face to the watching world.

If nothing else, it will present a rather red face, to judge by the extraordinary number of pubs, wine bars, and clubs that have sprouted in recent years.

'It's the renaissance of Manchester,' enthuses Michael Shaw, managing partner of 48-partner firm Cobbetts.

'Given that nobody was seriously injured, the IRA did a significant favour to Manchester.

It says a lot about Mancunians that there was no gnashing of teeth and waiting for government handouts - they just got on with it.' In their own way, Manchester's law firms are similarly rising in stature.

For years the perception was, rightly or wrongly, that Leeds was the major legal centre of the north, overshadowing its neighbour.

Ironically though, it was the entrance of the Leeds firms into the Manchester market a few years back that sparked the surge.

Mr Shaw says there is 'no doubt' that the way his firm has grown in the past five years - doubling in size, turnover and profit - 'wouldn't have happened without the migration of the Leeds firms from a maturing home market'.

Hammond Suddards was the first Leeds firm in with its own office, followed by a series of mergers which saw Manchester's so-called '3As' taken over.

Eversheds went for Alexander Tatham, Dibb Lupton Broomhead (as it then was) for Alsop Wilkinson and Booth & Co for Addleshaw Sons & Latham.

These three merged firms are now widely seen as the top corporate practices in the city; a good example of this was HSBC Private Equity's recent 120 million sale of oil service company CRP Group to Barclays Private Equity, on which all three offices advised.

Their growth, the subsequent polarisation of the Manchester legal market and the city's increasing corporate activity now means that nobody feels inferior to those over the Pennines.

'The opportunities for new work are greater in Manchester than in Leeds,' says Addleshaws partner Richard Wheeldon.

'It's a far bigger city, which is why it's surprising that Leeds was in the lead.' Addleshaws is widely seen as the biggest player in Manchester.

With a head-count of 389, it acts for 43 plc clients in the area and nobody doubts that it has been a successful merger.

Cobbetts' Michael Shaw suggests that this growth - Addleshaws is rapidly building a London office with the aim of competing with second-tier City firms - offers opportunities for local firms such as his.

An Addleshaws needs 100 million deals rather than 10 million deals to support its cost base, he says, and smaller firms can target these less valuable matters.

It is a notion strongly repudiated at Addleshaws.

'We're not going to lose sight of where we come from,' insists corporate finance partner Michael McGrath.

'Working on 100 million plus deals brings back a level of skills to local deals which others don't have.'Addleshaws' highest-profile deal is acting for the organisers of the Commonwealth Games, as part of which it has reached a unique1 million fees-for-sponsorship agreement.But while the work and profile is good, it does not necessarily send out the right message about Addleshaws' national ambitions, concedes Mr McGrath.

'The disadvantage of the games is that it looks like we only got the work because we're a Manchester firm.

In fact it's an international event and we've done broadcasting contracts around the world.'The assessment of which are the top firms is one Halliwell Landau would argue with.

Halliwells has recorded amazing growth in the past five years, its turnover of 26 million more than four times what it was in 1996.

But local rumour - and there are far more about46-partner Halliwells than any other firm in Manchester - has it that this and fat profits for the top equity partners have been achieved at the expense of working assistant solicitors to the bone.

The firm's only business plan is said to run to three words: 'Make more money.'Managing partner Paul Thomas has heard it all before and puts many of the comments down to jealousy.

'Halliwell Landau is one of, if not the success story of Manchester.

Nobody's achieved what we have.

You can't develop a business like we have if the partners hog the equity and sweat the staff.' Contrary to rumour, the firm has a low staff turnover, he says, adding that assistants do not have individual billing targets, but collectively have team targets.

'If you want to make progress in the profession, you do have to work hard, but it's not a sweatshop.' He names his firm, Addleshaws and DLA as the top corporate firms, with Eversheds catching up fast.The bit about Halliwells not having a business plan is actually true, however.

'If we can be so successful without a business plan, then we're quite happy not having one,' says Mr Thomas.

'We do have an idea of where we want to get to but we won't go out and recruit just to meet a business plan.' Cobbetts is one of the Manchester's oldest firms and one of the few top practices with no offices outside the city.

Nonetheless, only 40% of its work comes from local clients.

'Because we're not doing one-off property deals in the local market all the time, our local profile is not as high.

We have a high recognition outside Manchester compared to our competitors,' Mr Shaw claims.

Mr Shaw says a single office has its attractions to clients.

'Some significant clients do now put an emphasis on a single provider.

They don't want to instruct their lawyers in Manchester and find it resourced out of Birmingham and London.'Another single office practice is 58-partner Pannone & Partners, best known for the private client side of its business, such as acting in the Jodie and Mary conjoined twins case and the Alder Hey hospital scandal.

However, managing partner Joy Kingsley explains that half of the firm's 17 million turnover comes from commercial work.

The perception that it is best for family and clinical negligence can be self-perpetuating, she admits.

'It's not always easy to convince large commercial clients.' But while Pannones numbers Manchester Airport and Texaco among its big corporate clients, Ms Kingsley says it will never be an Addleshaws.

'You have to know you'll never be an Addleshaws; anyway, we don't want to be an Addleshaws.' Owner-managed businesses are more Pannones' thing.The salary frenzy in London has made its way up the M6 to an extent.

Newly qualifieds at the top firms can expect to earn at or close to 30,000, increases of more than 10% on last year.

It is motivated in the main by a shortage of quality lawyers, all agree.

Of course, 30,000 is how much new trainee solicitors at City firm Gouldens are now earning, but Ms Kingsley says you always feel that spending 1 in Manchester is the equivalent to 5 in London.

The quality of life argument is easy to believe in Manchester, with the country's best football team, much of its best music and clubs, the forthcoming spotlight of the Commonwealth Games, and the countryside of Cheshire but a few minutes drive away.'The whole atmosphere is completely different from London.

The pace of life is different,' says Joy Kingsley.

'I was in a Pret Manger in London the other week.

In Manchester, people stroll in and have a chat; in London, they were running in and out, mobiles ringing - and that was just East Croydon.'