Ward Hadaway opens in Leeds with raids on rivals

Newcastle-based Ward Hadaway is to open in Leeds after poaching five partners and two associates.

The eight lawyer Leeds office, Ward Hadaway’s first base outside its northeast heartland, will open in July and be headed by corporate partner Andrew Hoyle, former senior partner of Tyneside rival Watson Burton, where he also masterminded that firm’s expansion to Leeds (The Lawyer, 16 August 2004)

It will be staffed by Guy Morgan, Bevan Brittan’s head of the London healthcare property; construction partner Paul Washbourne from Beachcroft; commercial property partner Kevin Weston from Cobbetts; employment partner Alex Clements from Berrymans Lace Mawer and insolvency partner Steve Thomas from Brooke North.

The firm has also taken associates Angelo Basu, who led Pinsent Masons competition team in Leeds, and Cobbetts property associate Jonathan Dickson.

Ward Hadaway managing partner Jamie Martin said: “We have been looking at options to develop the business outside the North-East for some time. We already have a number of partners with established reputations in the Leeds and Yorkshire market and we wanted to capitalise on the opportunities that this presented.

“When you look at how our client base has expanded outside our immediate region, expanding our physical presence was a pretty logical next step”.

Martin added that Ward Hadaway is “actively recruiting in the market place and expect to announce a number of significant additional appointments in the near future.”

Andrew Hoyle added: “Our strategy has been to attract quality lawyers to the firm who recognise the opportunities that the firm can offer them and their clients and we feel certain that with the team we have assembled in Leeds, we will rapidly grow as we expand into Yorkshire.”