Northern firms join Standard Life Bank panel

ManchesteR firms Halliwell Landau and Lyons Wilson and Walker Morris in Leeds have all been added to the Standard Life Bank line-up.

The investment bank now has 12 firms on its panel, double the number of firms it had at the start of the year.

The panel increase reflects the booming housing market and the huge increase in large-scale mortgage work.

Plans to farm out work to twice the number of law firms were revealed in The Lawyer (19 April) when two Glasgow-based firms and another based in Marlow were appointed.

Glasgow-based Anderson Fyfe, Henderson Boyd Jackson WS and Gordons in Marlow were appointed to the panel which includes Dibb Lupton Alsop and Hammond Suddards in Bradford, Burness Direct in Edinburgh and Cleavers in Belfast.

Eversheds and Addleshaw Booth & Co are also on the panel. Addleshaws is also advising on the main fund after muscling in on property work formerly outsourced to Herbert Smith.

A Standard Life Bank spokeswoman says expansion in mortgage work has forced the bank to expand its panel. "Because of the volume of new business we are using more firms," she says.



Masons and Richards Butler have recently gained litigation work from Standard Life Assurance, due to the arrival of former Davies Arnold Cooper lawyers.

Michael Fletcher has taken a case with him to Masons, while an unnamed assistant has taken long-standing litigation to Richards Butler.