Member Article

Sheffield law firm Irwin Mitchell opens Southampton office

Sheffield law firm Irwin Mitchell has announced it will open its 9th UK office in Southampton, after hitting the £200 million income mark.

The south coast launch will be the second new Irwin Mitchell office in four years.

Court of Protection and personal injury teams will be in place from day one but the firm also confirmed plans to add other private client services including family, public law and private wealth expertise in the near future.

Irwin Mitchell also intends to develop its rapidly-growing business legal services division in the region, focusing on corporate, commercial litigation and real estate as well as other commercial services, as part of plans to develop a full offering after the new office opens in April.

A number of the firm’s existing lawyers will relocate as part of the launch team, led by the new Regional Managing Partner for Southampton, Guy Darlaston, who will move from his current role as a Partner in the London office to lead a team who will seek to build on a substantial base of existing clients and contacts in the region.

Irwin Mitchell also outlined plans to continue its recent recruitment drive in the Southampton legal market as it looks to repeat the success of its Bristol office, which opened in 2010 and has grown significantly since.

John Pickering, Group Chief Executive, said: “This is another statement of our intention to grow our business even further. It again demonstrates the strong position we are in at a time when other many legal businesses face difficulties.

“We have a strong track record of opening new offices when the time is right. We already do a significant amount of legal work in the Southampton and south coast area and we have now reached a level where having a local office will enable us to grow our presence still further.

“We expect Southampton to become a major office for us and to follow the track record of our other new offices in establishing Irwin Mitchell as a very significant presence in the local market in a short space of time.”

Guy Darlaston, Regional Managing Partner for Southampton, said: “We already provide specialist legal advice to clients across the south coast but we feel that the time is now right to establish a new regional office providing greater accessibility across our range of innovative legal services for both private and commercial clients.

“Southampton and the surrounding south coast cities make up a vibrant region of the UK and we are looking forward to working with this important growing community.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .