Four private client lawyers from Leeds-based Gordons have left the firm to open a private client boutique.

Simon Glazebrook, Martin Hasyn, Suzzanah Farnell and Frances Davies (all pictured) founded Progeny Private Law together, and are all directors at the firm.

Hasyn, Davies and Glazebrook were previously partners at Gordons, while Farnell had worked at the firm as a solicitor.

Glazenbrook told the Gazette: ‘We wanted to be focussed and having the client at the centre of the process and in regular contact was of significant importance to us, and this is perhaps easier when you are starting from scratch as we are.’

He added that after the Legal Services Act it was also easier to be ‘fleet footed’ which had also attracted the four to set up the new firm.  

The firm will target high net worth business owners, similar to the type of clients they were dealing with at Gordons.

The four expect to expand the firm in future, and will recruit further.

The eagerness of solicitors to form their own practices has been a feature of the sector since the financial crisis. According to SRA figures, 313 firms or sole practitioners opened in the first five months of this year, although this figure was down 24% on the same period last year.

Nevertheless, for the first three months of this year (the most recent figures available for closed firms), just 98 have shut, while 170 opened over that period.