No-nonsense specialist service
DESPITE challenging economic times, Sintons has continued to grow and recruit senior lawyers in key strategic areas to further strengthen and develop the services it offers to its clients.
Now with 22 partners and over 85 lawyers, Sintons has always had a distinctive presence in the market, with a very strong reputation among clients and other professionals for quality, partner-led client service and exceptional value for money.
Over the last decade, Sintons’ business strategy of building a broad-based legal practice, whilst maintaining the ability to provide increasingly specialist advice, has positioned the firm well to meet the needs of clients under these difficult and changing economic circumstances.
The firm’s three practice groups comprise Commercial, Personal Injury and Private Client, each of which are now of, broadly, equal strength. With both national and regional clients, the firm has, during the course of the year, won major new national clients through its reputation for pragmatic, no-nonsense advice.
The Commercial Group saw its fee income increase considerably during the course of the year, demonstrating the ability of Sintons to deal with both increasing volumes and complexity of work whilst maintaining service levels and quality.
The further development of specialist sector groups has continued. The Leisure Services Group acts for many of the largest leisure operators in the region. The Healthcare Group continues to advise not only doctors and dentists but also Foundation Trusts, care home operators and specialist property developers in this fast changing and topical area of business and law. Sintons has been at the forefront of advising on the implementation of the new, high profile Darzi clinics, which are aimed at delivering health care services in a new way.
Strategic key recruitment which has taken place during the year has included the appointment of Keith Land as a specialist employment law partner and Matt Collen, an expert in banking and insolvency, has joined as a partner in the corporate finance team.
The firm’s commercial property expertise has been strengthened with the addition of Jamie Corcoran, a construction law specialist, and Alok Loomba, a commercial property lawyer with a specific interest in the leisure and health care sectors.
This continued recruitment reflects the growth of the Commercial Group and the increasing share it enjoys with the legal market across the North East.
Sintons has over seven decades of experience in carrying out specialist defendant personal injury litigation and currently sits on the panels of seven national insurers. Partner, Jamie McCabe, was recently re-appointed as one of only four lawyers in the country to handle the most serious of catastrophic injuries for a household-name insurer. Sintons is also highly respected for its claimant personal injury work, providing consistently high levels of service.
In July this year, Sintons received extensive national and local media coverage for its involvement in a heavily disputed case involving a lady who was badly injured by cows whilst walking her dog.
The reputation of the firm for personal tax, trusts and probate work has always been strong and Sintons is well recognised by other professionals for its expertise in this area.
Sintons continues to work closely with large national accountancy firms and remains highly committed to this important specialism at a time when other law firms have taken the decision to stop carrying out this type of work.
In July, Sintons appointed Phil Ridley as practice director. Phil is a former finance director of one of the largest North East family-owned businesses.
Jim Dias, chairman of partners, sums up: “There have been many challenges for the legal sector in the North East this year and I suspect further interesting times lie ahead which always create opportunities for astute and innovative firms.
“Sintons does not rely on any key practice area, perhaps a unique position within the region.
“We remain committed to this approach which, when combined with our longstanding reputation for quality and client service, we expect will prove an effective and solid foundation for the future development and success of the firm.”
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