Fletchers eyes North West talent
One of the country’s biggest medical negligence law firms is preparing to expand its graduate recruitment programme as it opens a new office in Manchester.
Fletchers will embark on the hiring spree from February next year as it takes over the 15th floor of St James’ Tower in the heart of the city.
Currently the firm offers six training contracts and runs an apprentice programme and month-long vacation scheme out of its base in Southport, where a total of 340 people are employed across its clinical negligence and serious personal injury teams.
This is one of the few formalised graduate recruitment programmes outside of the corporate legal sector. So the news that Fletchers is expanding in Manchester will be music to the ears to the many students law students turned off by the prospect of advising banks and big companies.
For now, details remain rather thin on the ground, with a spokesperson for the firm telling Legal Cheek:
We will definitely be doing a lot of graduate and junior role recruitment around Manchester as a result of this new office. There will be trainee and paralegal opportunities as an alternative to corporate law, but with a city location.
Fletchers’ credentials as one to watch were underlined this year when it became one of just eight law firms to make the Sunday Times ‘Best Companies to Work For’ list, joining Stephens Scown, Mishcon de Reya, Kingsley Napley, Withy King, Withers, Mills & Reeve and Lewis Silkin in the rankings.
Bucking the Brexit gloom, the firm, whose Patient Claim Line brand sponsors Judge Rinder, has seen revenue rise 37% this year and profit before tax jump by a whopping 50%.
Fletchers CEO Ed Fletcher said:
Manchester was the logical choice for our second location, with the city firmly established as the capital of UK clinical negligence practice. We will be aiming to add the brightest and best lawyers to our already successful team. The growth, which has led us to opening the Manchester office, is a positive step towards achieving our goal of becoming a Top 100 law firm by 2018.