Mills & Reeve has overhauled its management team with new managing and senior partners.
Birmingham managing partner Guy Hinchley will take over as firm managing partner from incumbent Mark Jeffries in March 2007. Jeffries, who has been managing partner since 2001, will replace Jonathan Barclay as senior partner after Barclay retires.
Mills & Reeve is drafting a new strategic plan to coincide with the handovers.
Hinchley explained: “It’s quite a long process but we have a group of 15-16 people working to build up scenarios.
“We are discussing issues including the scale we want the firm to be, and the extent to which we should be investing in our existing locations. We are also looking at the markets we’re in and whether we want to be in any new ones, and having discussions about geography.”
Hinchley denied that his appointment reflected a greater emphasis on Birmingham: “It wasn’t a conscious decision that Mills & Reeve had to have a Birmingham-based person in the role. It was more my having the right sort of experience.”
Hinchley joined Mills & Reeve from Bury St Edmunds-based Greene & Greene in 1987 and became a partner in property in 1990. He joined the Birmingham office in 2000, and became its managing partner in 2001, since when the office has more than doubled in size from 7 to 15 partners.
The firm has lengthened the term of office from three years to four to give the new heads longer to bed into their roles.
Keith Hamilton, who joined from Eversheds in May, has also taken over from Beverley Firth as head of property.
The firm will hold its annual partners meeting in early November.
