Shakespeares targets 'leading Midlands firm' tag with Berryman merger
Shakespeare Putsman has merged with Nottingham-based Berryman, creating a £30m firm with 440 lawyers and staff across the East and West Midlands.
Paul Wilson
The merger was agreed by both firms yesterday and is set to complete on 1 November.
The deal follows last month’s merger of Shakespeare Putsman and Stratford-based Needham & James, which formed one of the largest practices in the West Midlands (8 June 2010).
Shakespeare Putsman chief executive Paul Wilson said the firm had decided to do another tie-up because the economic climate and the Legal Services Act in particular had made the legal marketplace increasingly complex and competitive.
“By merging, the two firms cement their position in the Midlands legal market place,” added Wilson. “As an ambitious, growing firm this merger will take us a step closer to establishing a leading Midlands legal firm. The merger also creates the platform for major investment in our people, infrastructure and branding.”
Berryman is the biggest single-site firm in Nottingham with 17 partners, six of whom are in the equity. Last year the firm fell slightly short of its 2009-10 turnover target of £6.6m but still managed a 1.5 per cent rise to £6.2m.
The firm used to be heavily reliant on its criminal practice, but refocused on commercial in 2007 when James Jarvis became managing partner.
In 2010, Jarvis undertook another transformation, reorganising the firm into sector-specific teams, breaking the work down into four key areas: life sciences, healthcare, TMT and rural economy.
Richard Brackenbury, chairman of Berryman, confirmed that in the short term his firm will continue to trade in Nottingham under the Berryman name.
“For all our clients, especially those based locally to us in Nottingham, the merger is in many ways particularly good news, as they’ll continue to benefit from an excellent legal team on their doorstep, and one that now has even more resource at its disposal,” added Brackenbury.
Readers' comments (31)
EC3 | 18-Aug-2010 11:18 am
What total irrelevance. I had to look up some of these place names. Can't The Lawyer do better than this ?
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Lame Duck | 18-Aug-2010 11:39 am
@ EC3, at least the story is not as irrelevant as your comment.
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@EC3-too | 18-Aug-2010 12:03 pm
Of course nothing of importance happens outside of London eh?
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Anonymous | 18-Aug-2010 12:17 pm
Fancy a national journalistic based entity having the temerity to publish a story about something outside of London! Shocking.
Apparently my 4 year old son has a better grasp of geography than EC3. I hope his/her employers don't test beyond the 2 times table.
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IHateBPP | 18-Aug-2010 12:29 pm
@EC3
It's "The Lawyer", not "The Exclusively Magic Circle Lawyer"
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Anonymous | 18-Aug-2010 1:18 pm
EC3 - what arrogance !
When I worked in London for a spell, my supposedly educated colleagues thought Nottingham was "near Manchester". Terrible education down there !
For Midlands' lawyers this IS actually newsworthy.
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Anonymous | 18-Aug-2010 1:27 pm
Heavens, so many of you are now on "t'internet". Marvellous.
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Anonymous | 18-Aug-2010 1:29 pm
Reference points on locations for those that need help:
Nottingham - Robin Hood
Stratford - William Shakespeare
Birmingham - erm, Led Zepplin
London - parochial lawyer child EC3
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Anonymous | 18-Aug-2010 2:18 pm
Which of these tiny hamlets did you need to look up? Nottingham or Birmingham?
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BillyBigPotatoes | 18-Aug-2010 3:05 pm
heh@ EC3
"Nottingham? Stratford? Do these places actually exist? Are you wasting my valuable time?"
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Anonymous | 18-Aug-2010 3:33 pm
Now he's done something the partners can sack him.
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Anonymous | 18-Aug-2010 5:40 pm
It's a shame when people knock things due to jealousy wherever they come from and whatever their prejudices. It seems to be a common problem in the legal sphere. Good luck to SP, NJ and now Berryman in their merger.
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BLM | 18-Aug-2010 9:45 pm
What I can't get over is how on earth Berrymans and Berryman could both operate with such similar names. (I know Berrymans has Lace Mawer attached to the name but nobody calls it that)
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EC4 | 19-Aug-2010 3:06 am
Goodness me, what a lot of chippiness!
I suspect EC3 was being a little tongue in cheek - I don't know - but, to be fair, nothing of much significance really goes on in the legal profession outside of the City.
These sorts of stories do therefore seem rather irrelevant.
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Anonymous | 19-Aug-2010 8:36 am
ha ha ha, clearly still a recession in UK with so many lawyers with nothing better to argue about!
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Anonymous | 19-Aug-2010 11:05 am
to EC4, the fact is there is a huge amount of significant work taking place in the regions but London centric publications limit its exposure which in turn leads to that perception.
Personally I couldn't care less about Shakespeares as their merger strategy is random at best and likely to fail but I think it's disingenuous to devalue your regional colleagues as having no significance.
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Anonymous | 19-Aug-2010 12:49 pm
Always confuses me when the firm have had the "single site operation" as their unique selling point for several years, now choosing to have numerous satellite offices. Also must be really stressful for the staff who are in constant fear of their jobs every time the firm decides to make these announcements.
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Anonymous | 19-Aug-2010 4:15 pm
To all the people replying in indignant terms to EC3, EC4 etc: don't feed the trolls
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Badger | 19-Aug-2010 5:47 pm
Most ot the comments demonstrate arrogance or ignorance. The article is a proper report on a firm that will be in the top 80. Can all your London-centric contributors say the same of their own firms? If they can then the profession must be in dire straights if that is the quality of the people in those firms.
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EC6 and a half | 20-Aug-2010 5:30 pm
Great comment by EC3 and EC4 - designed to wind up everyone (I hope). I am in industry and have used regional and magic circle firms (depending on the work). Some of the routine employment and commercial work in the regions matches the City for quality and beats it for rates. Other work, well, its got to be the City. Don't put down those in firms in the regions - some of them are pretty good! As for the merger, why Stratford upon Avon? Nice place, but odd firm to merge with. As for Nottingham, it has more going for it, but why Berryman? Odd!
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EC3 | 23-Aug-2010 12:03 pm
Badger: its ' straits', not 'straights'.
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Anonymous | 24-Aug-2010 4:34 pm
EC3 is just annoyed because he and his mates live in crummy 2 bed apartments they had to pay £500k for, which they presumably hardly see trying to bill 1900 hours a year. The more canny of us who populate the back and beyond, having elected to shun this nonsensical lifestyle, live in nice big houses with gardens (shock horror), living a rather tip top lifestyle to boot. Know where I'd rather be!
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EC4 | 25-Aug-2010 12:02 pm
@Anonymous 24-Aug-2010 4:34 pm
One of the few things guaranteed to raise a smile on the face of even the most jaded Londoner is a chippy northerner (which I assume you are) parading his inferiority complex.
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Anonymous | 25-Aug-2010 1:02 pm
Nope, I am not a Northerner. Nor do I work there. I am chipper. But not a chippy.
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Anonymous | 25-Aug-2010 2:18 pm
Surely the most amazing thing to come out of tha article is that the merged firm will bill £30m with 440 lawyers. That's just £68,182 revenue per lawyer. What are they doing with their days?
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Anonymous | 25-Aug-2010 4:10 pm
Wrong. 440 "lawyers and staff".
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Anonymous | 25-Aug-2010 4:27 pm
Even more amazing is the low value per lawyer that Berryman were getting - compared to the announcement post the Needham James Merger, it can be shown that Berryman were only doing £50k revenue / lawyer (120 staff, £6m revenue)...
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Anonymous | 25-Aug-2010 5:37 pm
Rumour Mill:
Will Dickinson Dees be the next to join Shakespeare or will they join Quality Solicitors?
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Anonymous | 26-Aug-2010 5:23 pm
Get lives people....!
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Anonymous | 26-Aug-2010 10:15 pm
Coming back to the article itself, I think both firms should be congratulated. Isn't this how the likes of Eversheds started off in the early 90s - medium size Birmingham firm acquiring smaller, established regional practices- and just look at Eversheds now.
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Stephen Worthing | 28-Aug-2010 7:39 pm
@Anonymous | 25-Aug-2010 5:37 pm
My money is on at least one more Shakespeare merge before Spring...anyone care for a sweepstake?!
And Anonymous | 25-Aug-2010 2:18 pm
Good observation. There are MANY people out there who can tell you what's going on in these firms other than law....
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