Irwin Mitchell has appointed DWF’s pensions head Martin Jenkins to lead its national pensions practice from London.
Jenkins will joins Irwin Mitchell’s existing pensions partner Nigel Bolton who is based in the firm’s Leeds office.
His appointment is part of the firm’s continuing drive to build up its business legal services (BLS) division and adds to the recent hires of corporate and commercial partners Nick Dawson and Sarah Riding and commercial litigation partners Dorrien Peters and Jonathon Crook.
Jenkins said: “[BLS] has a clear direction and a pioneering and entrepreneurial approach which I believe puts the firm in an ideal position to take advantage of what remains to be a challenging and fast-changing commercial environment.”
Jenkins is the ninth partner to join the BLS division since the start of the year and joins real estate partner Ayesha Hasan, insolvency partner Edward Judge and professional negligence partner Jonathan Sachs in London.
Last month, Irwin Mitchell acquired Mayfair-based Berkeley Law, which specialises in wealth advice for high-net-worth individuals (6 November 2014). The acquisition was the firm’s sixth since it became an alternative business structure in 2012 (20 August 2012).
In the last year the firm has formed a joint ABS, IMe Law, with Sheila’s Wheels insurance company Esure (4 August 2014) as well as acquiring Manchester-based personal injury specialists MPH Solicitors in November 2013 (14 November 2013) and debt legal services firm HL Interactive in March (4 March 2014).
The firm also opened in Southampton in April (10 February 2014) and Cambridge in June (16 April 2014).
In March Irwin Mitchell secured a £60m rolling banking facility along with an additional £30m buffer in a joint deal with HSBC, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland (27 March 2014).
A month later group chief executive John Pickering stood down after 37 years at the firm (2 April 2014).
