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Nick Johnson in the Manchester Evening News 04.04.13

By April 5, 2013January 29th, 2021Firm news

Manchester Evening News reports “Glaisyers will split to drive up growth”. Apr 2013 06:00

A 40-year-old Manchester law firm has revealed plans to split in two

Glaisyers was established in 1974 and has been operating from offices in the city centre and Longsight.

The Longsight office will now be set up as a separate Limited Liability Partnership under the name WTB Solicitors and will focus on family law, ranging from property issues to childcare matters.

The initials stand for the office’s three partners – Elena Waddell, Ben Taylor and Chris.

Meanwhile, the city centre office, which has 50 staff, including 10 partners, will retain the Glaisyers name.

It will focus predominantly on commercial law, ranging from employment issues and property transactions to litigation and mergers and acquisitions.

It will also continue to deal with personal injury road traffic accident cases and some private client work. Managing partner Nick Johnson will head the Manchester operation and said he wants to grow its annual fee income to around £9m within five years.

Current fee income across both offices stands at around £6m.

Mr Johnson said: “We want to get to that £8 to 9m mark out of Manchester alone in about four or five years.

“I see us doing that organically but also through acquisitions of smaller law firms and key lateral hires.”

He added: “What we are doing is a bold step for us at a time when there is uncertainty in the legal market. But it is the right thing to do.

“We have effectively been operating as two separate brands and businesses, so we have decided it is better we establish ourselves in that way.

“We have been working for two years to get to this position and it is about being clear what our brand identity is and focussing on what we are good at and what we specialise in.”

Glaisyers in Manchester has key clients in the retail, utilities and manufacturing sectors and typically deals with firms with a turnover of £20m or less.

It also has a lot of local authority clients.

It is undergoing a re-brand as part of the split, with a slogan of “big enough to trust, small enough to care”.

Mr Johnson said: “It is about looking at what makes us different to everyone else.

“To me, there are three things a client cares about and they are how much it is going to cost them, what they are going to get for their money and how long it will take.

“We have got to stay focussed on those three things and it is about being a business but being a professional business and giving the customer what they want.”

Nick Johnson

Author Nick Johnson

Nick is the managing partner here at Glaisyers. Nick promotes a philosophy where all who work for the firm go the extra mile and are open, honest, caring and down-to-earth. Nick is also head of the commercial litigation team.

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