A SPECIALIST North East employment law firm has beaten off competition from across the UK to win a contract with a large not-for-profit mental healthcare charity.

Collingwood Legal has been appointed by St Andrew’s Healthcare to provide employment law advice for the next three years.

Headquartered in Northampton, and with facilities in Essex, Nottinghamshire and Birmingham, St Andrew’s Healthcare provides innovative, specialist healthcare for adults, adolescents and older people across a range of disciplines, from mental healthcare and learning disability through to acquired brain injury and progressive and neuro-degenerative conditions.

Collingwood Legal will now work closely with the charity’s in-house legal and HR teams to help ensure the continued smooth running of its operations, and will assist with the charity’s continuing development.

Set up late last year by well-known regional lawyer Paul McGowan, Collingwood Legal specialises in employment law.

McGowan said: “St Andrew’s Healthcare is recognised as a real leader in its field, and for an organisation of this calibre to choose to work with a North East law firm is a real recognition of the quality of our approach to our work and the services we provide.

“St Andrew’s has continued to innovate and expand its operations, especially over the last decade, as it seeks to continue to provide the best possible support to its service users, and being part of this continuing development represents an exciting challenge for the Collingwood Legal team.

“Bringing a contract of this nature into the region is also good news for the our legal sector, and we’re confident that we will be able to build on our achievements so far as Collingwood Legal continues to develop its reputation in the North East legal community.”