Member Article

North West solicitor expands family services

North West solicitors Stephensons have added an in-house advocacy unit to its services following a pilot scheme led by one of the firm’s associates.

The company has offices in Altrincham, Bolton, Wigan, St Helens, Manchester and Leigh with 31 partners and more than 400 staff.

Headed up by law partner, Andrew Mountain, the advocacy unit will allow Stephensons to represent divorce clients in court, rather than taking the traditional route of going to a barrister.

The company said this addition would make the divorce process less costly and much simpler for its clients.

Mr Mountain said: “It is not common place for family Solicitors to offer this advocacy service and we are excited to be pioneering the practice to benefit our clients.

“Our clients will have better continuity of knowledge about their case, and cost savings could be significant, as we will not have to brief external advocates.”

Anna White, Stephensons’ associate who organised the advocacy unit pilot scheme, commented: “We have received fantastic feedback from clients and have secured successful outcomes for a range of cases through our advocacy service.

“This success has led to me working exclusively on advocacy for my clients and I look forward to involving even more of our family team lawyers as I lead in-depth internal training over the coming months.”

The solicitors’ family team is made up of 90 people across its six North West offices, including 30 specialist lawyers.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .