Two new London law firms have signed up to the City of London Law Society (CLLS), which now has 51 top practices on its books.
City outfits LG and Trowers & Hamlins are the latest firms to join the representative body after signing up during the last 12 months.
The newly-expanded body currently represents 35 of the UK’s top 50 law firms and five out of the top 20 US firms in the City, including Reed Smith, Dechert and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, as well as a number of boutiques. It means the body now represents more than 13,000 solicitors overall.
National firms Hammonds and Wragge & Co remain the only top 30 firms not to have signed up. However, commercial boutique Elborne Mitchell recently decided to opt out of the CLLS membership.
Trowers & Hamlins senior partner Jonathan Adlington told Legal Week: “A number of solicitors had been individual members and recommended we take corporate membership and we are pleased to have done so.”
CLLS chairman David McIntosh commented: “There are signs that there is an appetite among corporate firms for the CLLS to do more for them rather than less.”
The CLLS has championed City firms in many issues facing the legal profession, including lobbying the Government on the Legal Services Bill and opposing the changes to the training contract proposed by the Law Society, which would reduce the length of solicitor training.
