Hammonds invites office heads to join the board
Hammonds has overhauled its management structure to give more power to office heads.
Robert Weekes
The heads of the national firm’s offices in Leeds, London, Manchester and Birmingham now sit on its operations board.
They join managing partner Peter Crossley and Hammonds’ international department heads. The board deals with the day-to-day running of the firm as well as long-term strategy. The revamped board will meet once a month.
Hammonds London head Robert Weekes said: “The idea is for office heads to take more of a lead in running the firm. As office heads we’re very connected to the local economies and local clients.”
In recent months Hammonds has created a number of new roles designed to boost revenue and better manage the firm’s network.
Earlier this year it created five international liaison partner positions, with five UK partners made responsible for liaising with Hammonds’ global offices (The Lawyer, 22 June).
The partners who won the roles were Carl Rohsler for Germany, Jan Lucas for France, Nick Allen for Brussels and Spain, and David Hull and Jan Bullen for the US. Weekes is in the process of recruiting a partner to work closely with China and the Far East.
During the 2008-09 financial year Hamonds’ average profit per equity partner dropped by 25 per cent from £367,000 to £276,000. Turnover was down by 5 per cent, from £132m to £125.4m (The Lawyer.com, 9 July).
