With demand for legal services at best holding steady, Manchester is witnessing a bloody, if dignified, battle for marketshare of the best commercial work. This fight in the biggest legal centre in the North West is accelerating a process of polarisation – or “the good firms getting better, while the rest struggle” as one managing partner describes it.
“The thing to understand about Manchester is that we used to be puzzled by Leeds and Birmingham, where there was a Big Five or Six and then nothing,” says Cobbetts managing partner Michael Shaw. “Manchester had a whole raft of good firms of all sizes. That has changed in the last couple of years.”
