Law Firms

Berwin Leighton Paisner

Adelaide House

London Bridge

London

EC4R 9HA

Telephone: 020 7760 1000

Fax: 020 7760 1111

Contact: Craig Hall

Email: Craig.hall@blplaw.com

URL: http://www.blplaw.com/recruitment

We are a premier, full service City law firm, with particular strengths in real estate, corporate and finance, and a strong litigation and dispute resolution capability. Our vision is to be "the most respected law firm in London" and to achieve this we believe we must "always exceed our clients' expectations" and "provide a more attractive place to work than our competitors".
We work with clients from large institutions, major corporates, banks and financial institutions, major property companies and developers, and public sector bodies.
Our major clients include: Barclays; Canary Wharf; French Connection; GE Capital; Goldman Sachs; GUS; ING International; Land Securities; Legal and General; Leisure and Gaming; Liverpool City Council; Lloyds TSB; London Thames Gateway Development; Merrill Lynch; Tesco; the RFU; UBS; Virgin Games and Westfield Shoppingtowns.
Our increasing international workload reflects our strategy of partnering with the best in jurisdictions around the world. Through alliances in key countries and a growing number of 'best friends' relationships, we are able to maintain the flexibility and quality our clients deserve.
We have our own offices in Brussels, incorporating our fast expanding EU and competition practice, and alliances with Kramer Levin in New York and Paris. We also have a 'best friends' agreement with Beiten Berkhardt in Germany, Eastern Europe and Asia, with specialist funds and real estate practice networks across Europe. In addition, our international project finance team have been particularly active in Eastern Europe, while our energy team have been working on major projects in the Middle East.
We have delivered a number of years of high, managed and focused growth. In 2004/5, we had a turnover of £121m (up 19% on 2003/4) and growth has not been restricted to a particular area of expertise: corporate was up by 35%; real estate increased by 19%; finance by 17%, and; litigation by 16%. At the half year 2005/6 we reported that we were continuing to do well with turnover up by approximately 17%. Profits also increased substantially.
Having doubled in size and improved profitability greatly over the last four years, we now employ over 1000 people. This includes approximately 550 lawyers, of whom some 150 are partners. We have become a magnet for quality staff, and aim to provide a more attractive place to work than our competitors.
In order to achieve this, we have focused on a number of areas, including career development, benefits and maintaining our uniquely open and friendly culture.
For example, we have a range of tailored training programmes for all levels of legal staff, and we are putting in place a career development framework that provides a clear guidance on the skills and experience required at different career stages. We also employ a career development manager to focus on newly qualified solicitors. The officer focuses on enhancing the morale, motivation and development of fee-earners particularly those with up to three years' post-qualification experience (PQE). We are also one of the first firms to introduce an alternative to partner role, to enable those assistants who do not aspire to partnership to continue to develop their careers.
We believe our benefits package is one of the most generous in the industry, and it includes a number of innovative options, including a tax-deductible bike purchase scheme and an on-site nurse.
We also actively look to maintain our open and friendly culture. For example, we are one of the few major law firms to provide a diversity training programme for every member of our staff and our recruitment initiatives are diversity focused.

Law Firms

Berwin Leighton Paisner

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