All change at Pinsents with hire of DLA team

Pinsent Curtis Biddle is hiring an insolvency team from the Manchester office of DLA to shore up its fledgling Manchester site. DLA insolvency partner Philip Coates is set to join Pinsents with a team of assistants.

Patrick Corr's decision to resign from his position as national head of corporate recovery at Pinsents is the catalyst to the current merry go round. Corr's decision to join US firm Sidley Austin Brown & Wood mean that there would be a gap in the Leeds office.

Jonathan Jeffries, who was originally head of corporate recovery in Leeds, before Corr took over in 1997, was one of the three original partners sent to the new Pinsents office in Manchester. But little more than two months after being sent to Manchester to focus on building a corporate recovery speciality, he is being brought back to fill the void and replace Corr as the new national head. He will return to Leeds when the new team from DLA arrives, and will be joined by Andrew Smith, an assistant from Hammond Suddards Edge, who is joining the firm as a salaried partner.

Pinsents Manchester office started operating in January and has seven partners. The office launched with four partners from Manchester corporate boutique Chaffe Street. They left for Pinsents in October 2001. Then Chaffe Street dissolved its partnership and three Chaffe Street insolvency partners, Shan Spencer, Pater Samekh and Martin Keates joined DLA.

Manchester firm Halliwell Landau and Northern firm Cobbetts also benefited from the dissolution of Chaffe Street.
Chaffe Street, which managed to keep six of its original sixteen partners, has now merged with North West firm Brabners to create Brabners Chaffe Street.