The Legal 500

Irwin Mitchell is unique, both in its culture and its approach to law. Nationally acclaimed, with strong international capabilities, Irwin Mitchell provides a diverse range of legal services to businesses and private individuals. It has a strong customer service culture and a high level of client retention.

The firm:

Irwin Mitchell operates with IMCO Holdings Ltd, which owns the subsidiaries and Irwin Mitchell LLP. The firm has an established office network covering Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Leicester (consulting office), London, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield, as well as Malaga and Madrid. It also operates in Scotland through Irwin Mitchell Scotland LLP with an office in Glasgow. The firm, which is celebrating its centenary in 2012, employs more than 2100 staff and more than 175 partners.

In April 2011, Irwin Mitchell was the first major law firm to announce that it would become an alternative business structure and that it would seek external investment with the implementation of the final stage of the Legal Services Act.

The firm won an award for its innovative corporate strategy, was named in the Industry Pioneers category at the annual FT Innovative Lawyers awards 2011, is ranked in the Top 50 litigation firms in the world by The Lawyer and in 2011 was named as one of the leading companies in the UK for commitment to local communities in the Business in the Community’s annual Corporate Responsibility Index.

Other accolades include being named in the top three law firms in Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index for 2012, as well as being one of the leading companies to sign up to the Business Compact scheme to create fairer job opportunities for young people. Irwin Mitchell was also listed among the top five Most Diverse Law Firms in the UK by the Black Solicitors Network and the Legal Sector Alliance found it has the 2nd Lowest Carbon Footprint of any UK law firm.

Types of work undertaken: One of the largest law firms in the UK, Irwin Mitchell provides a wide range of legal services to over 200,000 clients a year, with particular strengths in litigation.

The firm adopts a partnership approach to its clients, underpinned by the latest technology, innovative pricing and excellent service delivery. It is divided into three divisions:

Personal legal services: The firm remains one of the leading personal injury and medical negligence litigation practices in the UK. It offers a wide range of services covering all the key injury types from road traffic accidents to product liability claims and serious head/spinal injury cases. A comprehensive range of private client services are also provided, including a national family team with extensive experience in acting in complex financial disputes. The firm is one of the leading will writing specialists for customers of major financial institutions, as well as providing a will writing service for individuals. In addition, it provides a national probate, contentious probate, public law and conveyancing service and is the UK’s leading court of protection practice.

Business legal services: The firm offers a wide range of commercial services and in recent years it has expanded its corporate, commercial litigation and real estate services. The aim is to develop a cutting edge commercial service that will challenge the traditional City and national firms. One of the firm’s great strengths is its ability to deal with volume work due to its state of the art case management systems and ability to provide clients with access to their cases on a 24/7 basis. Areas of expertise include business investigations, commercial litigation and dispute resolution, construction and infrastructure, corporate, employment, environmental, finance, insolvency, international, investigations and prosecutions, pensions, planning, real estate, recoveries, restructuring and tax.

Strategic client relationships: This division is responsible for overseeing the contracts for all the firm’s major clients, as well as developing additional service offerings for them. The firm has an outstanding track record of delivering bespoke solutions for its business partners that ensures that Irwin Mitchell is recognised as the leading legal provider of volume and commoditised legal services in the UK.

Subsidiaries: Irwin Mitchell’s investment management business (IM Asset Management Ltd) provides specialist fund management services for private individuals. It acts for a wide range of clients including high-net-worth individuals and personal injury claimants.

Irwin Mitchell also owns Coris UK Ltd, which is part of the Coris Group, a worldwide network providing services to a range of independent clients in the travel and insurance industries. In addition, Irwin Mitchell owns a full service DCA (debt collection agency), Ascent Collections Ltd, which covers all types of debt across the UK. It works in two service areas: ascent collections (debt recovery and debt purchasing) and ascent contact (support services for debt recovery to major institutions).

Number of UK Partners 177

Number of other UK fee-earners 900+