Pinsents lures Dibbs' commercial head to lead its national litigation

Pinsent Curtis has brought off a coup by poaching leading Manchester litigator Nigel Kissack from Dibb Lupton Alsop to be its national head of litigation.

Kissack - who is currently negotiating his departure date - was Alsop Wilkinson's Manchester managing partner until its merger with Dibb Lupton Broomhead in June last year. He then became Dibbs' head of commercial litigation for the north west.

Kissack denied that his move had anything to do with the merger. "I was not looking for this, it came to me," he said. He added that after the merger he was "quite happy to lose the managing role after five years".

Kissack, a long-term Manchester resident, will move house to work from Pinsents' Leeds office where a hole in the litigation practice was left by the departure of partners Guy Harvey to Dickinson Dees in February and Kevin Perry shortly afterwards to Barlow Lyde & Gilbert.

Pinsents has long said it would like to set up a Manchester office and Kissack would be an ideal candidate to head it.

But Kissack said: "At the moment that is not part of my job specification... There is no black and white plan for it."