Member Article

Manchester education team top of the class at Browne Jacobson

The Manchester education team at Browne Jacobson has established itself as the go to law firm for education work across the North West following a strong year in which it has achieved 36 per cent growth.

Led by partner Dai Durbridge, Browne Jacobson’s specialist education team in Manchester has announced 76 per cent growth since 2014/15 and 36 per cent growth since 2015/16. The firm now acts for over 200 schools in the North West and continues to grow as the team enters its sixth year in Manchester.

Key to Browne Jacobson’s growth has been the firm’s involvement in creating sponsored multi-academy trusts over the last year, including transferring existing single academies into those trusts. The North West team has worked on more than 15 such projects this year alone, accounting for 50 per cent of the firm’s 2016/17 fees. The team’s strong reputation for HR support and advising schools on complying with the GDPR changes has also contributed to its excellent growth.

Major projects include advising Changing Lives In Collaboration on the formation of CLIC, a co-operative multi academy trust based in Chorlton, Manchester, and acting for The Bolton Impact Trust, a multi academy trust consisting of four Pupil Referral Units, which also sponsored a local secondary school.

Dai Durbridge, education partner at Browne Jacobson, said: “It has been an incredibly strong year for the education team at Browne Jacobson. We have advised and supported numerous schools, academies and colleges with complex, urgent and high profile matters and we continue to demonstrate our ability to support these institutions through a challenging area of work. The strong growth of our education team is testament to the stature Browne Jacobson has developed across the North West, not only in the education arena, but across a host of legal practices.”

Amanda Callaghan, Head of Browne Jacobson’s Manchester office, added: “The growth of our education team has been one of the major success stories coming out of our Manchester office. We have generated significant momentum since we opened six years ago with consistent in-flows of work and new client wins. We will continue to focus on aligning our services with our client’s needs, investing in the best legal talent and delivering exceptional client service as we look to strengthen our footprint in the North West.”

Browne Jacobson’s national education team consists of 40 lawyers and support staff, which support over 1,200 schools and academies from a five office national network.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ray Gammon .