Eversheds Leeds loses lawyer to Pinsents

Eversheds' Leeds office has lost senior commercial litigation solicitor Stuart Chapman to Pinsent Curtis in Leeds.

Chapman, who will become a partner at his new firm, would not comment on the reasons for his departure. However, Eversheds' Leeds office has lost several partners and solicitors from its litigation department over the past 18 months and some sources point to the management distraction of trying to unify the firm's offices throughout the country known in the firm as 'convergence'.

But Eversheds' Leeds managing partner David Ansbro, who said he was sorry to see Chapman go, stressed that legal directories have named the office as the market leader in commercial litigation for several years.

He said: 'Bearing in mind that to achieve number one status and keep it for a number of years means that we have to ensure that our people are of the highest quality, there is bound to be some turnover. But we have lost only a handful of people we would otherwise have preferred to keep.'



Residential development specialist Richard Bate has left Eversheds in Birmingham, where he was previously a senior associate, to join Wragge & Co's property department as partner.