Ex-Burnetts partner sets up corporate practice in Carlisle

CUMBRIA has gained its first specialist corporate/ commercial practice.

Baines Wilson, based in Carlisle, is specialising in corporate finance, information technology and intellectual property work.

Founder John Wilson, a native Cumbrian, was a partner at Burnetts in Carl-isle before setting up Baines Wilson.

He says there is a market for commercial legal services in Cumbria, but that "most of the better work has left the county because this market hasn't been successfully serviced at a local level".

Wilson is expecting to handle a broad range of company commercial work for owner-managed businesses, as well as for divisions of larger, priv- ately-owned businesses and PLCs.

He says: "We are handling transactional work, in the county, which had previously gone out of Cumbria."

Baines Wilson is working for a number of Scottish companies and Wilson says he hopes to bridge the gap between Scottish and English law to offer services in the north of England to expanding Scottish companies.

The firm consists of three lawyers and Wilson hopes to have "between six and eight fairly senior lawyers" within the next two years.