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Thursday, 09 February 2012
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Olswang set to shift work to the regions

Olswang is planning to ramp up the use of its ­Reading office for selected legal work in a bid to offer clients a lower-cost option and allow its transactional lawyers room to focus on higher-margin deals.

David Stewart

David Stewart

The project, which centres on real estate litigation and management, as well as employment, is likely to see Olswang recruit more fee-earners into those groups in the Thames Valley.

Olswang managing ­partner David Stewart, who last week was elected to take over from Kevin Munslow as chief operating officer, denied that the strategy was likely to result in London-based lawyers having to move to Reading.

“We’d never ask anyone to relocate unless they ­wanted to,” stressed ­Stewart. “This is about growing the number of staff in Reading to meet client demand and freeing up our transactional teams.”

The shift to Reading is one part of a wider ­strategic review at Olswang launched last year, which is likely to see it spread its coverage ­significantly wider than the Thames Valley.

The firm polled its ­partnership last October about its strategy and its international plans.

“The strong consensus was to continue with our sector-based strategy as it differentiates us,” said ­Stewart. “We’ve also looked at where growth is likely to come from over the next five years.

“I believe - and my ­partners agree - that means looking carefully at opportunities to grow our own office network in jurisdictions where we can develop our sector-based offering.”

Readers' comments (2)

  • There's nothing wrong with Reading, it's even easy enough to commute there from London.

    Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment

  • "Nothing wrong with Reading"?

    Don't make me laugh, it's a dump.

    Out of 408 places in Britain it was named as the worst to bring up a family - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/6564923.stm

    I would think it would be grounds for constructive dismissal to be shipped off to Reading.

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