Nine firms get the nod in revamped Yorkshire Forward panel
Regional development agency Yorkshire Forward has completed a panel review with nine firms winning places.
Tom Riordan
The organisation has established two panels. The largest covers 15 areas of law including regeneration and economic development. Addleshaw Goddard, Cobbetts, Eversheds, Hammonds, Pinsent Masons and Walker Morris have been appointed to this roster.
The other panel is made up of three firms and covers company/commercial, litigation, information and property law.
Firms have been appointed for three years, with an option for Yorkshire Forward to extend the term for a further 12 months.
Chief executive of Yorkshire Forward Tom Riordan commented: “The growth of the legal community in Yorkshire and Humber is a real regional success story and we wanted to ensure that the two new panels were open to all firms in the region, whether large or small.
View results 10 per page | 20 per page | 50 per page
Readers' comments (28)
Anonymous | 8-Apr-2010 4:26 pm
Oooh yes, just look at all those small firms on the panel. Typical public sector blarney...
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 8-Apr-2010 5:31 pm
'Small firms'... or are they most of the biggest firms in the Yorkshire region....acting for a group concerned with development in Yorkshire. Get beyond the Watford Gap and get over yourself!
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 9-Apr-2010 1:25 am
I'm sure the successful firms were chosen on the basis of a thorough process. As a tax payer I want to see the public sector get the best legal advice for the best price - not subsidising small firms who didn't offer quite as much but think they should be on the roster just because they are small. Who were the other 3 firms?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
KRUSTY THE KLOWN | 9-Apr-2010 9:35 am
Big firms... working together...for the benefit of the taxpayer?
Unless you have been sharing a cave with Osama (who I suspect is better informed than "taxpayer" here) you will not have failed to notice that small firms are the best run (SRA statistics confirm this) and the least likely to engage in cartel steered market fixing?
If big was truly beautiful Bella Emberg would win rear of the year every year.
Big means: less choice, more cost and less accessibility to those who need legal advice.
Collaborating to produce a thinly disguised OMNICORP of legal service is the product of ill informed snobbery towards small firms rather than smart management - all I can say is, I'd love to see how the policy of paying big firms through the nose for legal services that could be provided equally well and considerably cheaper by smaller niche or high street practices survives the inevitable public sector spending cuts that must follow the election.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Bumble Bee | 9-Apr-2010 12:55 pm
My knowledge of small firms comes from dealing with them on corporate transactions. I acknowledge there are exceptions but listening to conference calls where a high street generalist attempts to bluff his way through a complex agreement whilst his dog potters around his office is excruciating. I would want to know the job is done correctly. This is where big firms show their value -they have a range of specialists, have the budget and resources to recruit the brightest and their staff will work the hours required to get the job done. In my view their is no contest - if a small firm can deliver the same for less they would win. Inevitably they can't, so they don't.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 9-Apr-2010 1:01 pm
I'm with Krusty on this one - all legal panels should be obliged to accept at least one application which is on two sides of crumpled Holiday Inn paper, part typed, part scrawled in blue biro and which shows a breadth of experience from litigation about overgrown lawns to an agreement for painting a gate.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 9-Apr-2010 1:06 pm
I enjoy seeing the word "snobbery" used by people who don't understand that using it also indicates snobbery on their part. Typical high street practitioner - chippy, badly dressed and almost certainly with a parrot in his office.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Taxpayer | 9-Apr-2010 1:18 pm
"best legal advice for the best price" - In my view my statement was not contencious. The public body has gone through the bids on an empirical basis to achieve this.
I presume you would prefer "best legal advice that can be achieved by three middle aged partners who don't work before 10.30am or after 4.45pm, often using plc precedents for the best(ish) price".
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 9-Apr-2010 7:13 pm
Heh Krusty accuses Eversheds and their rivals of colluding to fix the Market. Obviously deranged!
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 10-Apr-2010 7:16 pm
I love this assertion that small firms are better managed than large firms. Complete bunkem!
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment