The Legal 500

Weightmans is a national top 45 law firm with seven offices. The firm is growing rapidly because of its focus on two key aspects of its business: its clients and its people.

The firm: Weightmans aims to be the law firm and the employer of choice. It does excellent work for clients who want an open and honest commercial relationship and enjoy doing business with the firm. Members of the team are determined to achieve the best results for clients by not making assumptions about what that means. The firm measures and monitors results. It wants to make sure that clients come back, time and time again. Weightmans also recognises the importance of its people enjoying what they do in a friendly and inspiring working environment.

Types of work undertaken: The firm is structured along three business lines: insurance, commercial and public sector.

Weightmans has a formidable reputation and heritage in insurance litigation in which it is a leading national player. It handles all sizes of claims for many leading insurers and their clients across a broad range of disciplines and in all offices. From handling slips and trips to professional negligence work, untangling reinsurance disputes, running strategic litigation and test cases, and help with the challenges posed by the MoJ reforms, Weightmans provides a full service to the industry and its insureds. The firm’s activities are not, however, restricted to traditional measures. With designated rapid processing teams and third party assistance innovations, the firm is investing in technological and process partnerships to enable clients to deal with the challenges ahead. Key clients include Zurich, MIB, Co-Operative Insurance, AXA Corporate Solutions, Chartis and QBE.

Weightmans’ commercial business comprise teams specialising in corporate transactions, commercial contracts (including IT and intellectual property), commercial dispute resolution, debt recovery, employment, real estate, construction and engineering, corporate manslaughter, and health and safety prosecution and defence. The firm’s work in these areas has shown strong growth in the past three years. Following the merger with Mace & Jones in May 2011, the commercial business has become a considerable national practice. Clients include public companies, privately owned institutions and owner-managed businesses, as well as public sector and regulatory bodies. Following the merger, the firm added a strong family and private law service with a formidable reputation in the market.

Weightmans has a strong and fast-growing reputation in the public sector market, acting for many local, police and fire authorities. The firm enjoys a pre-eminent position in the work it undertakes for local authorities, offering a wrap-around support service covering the whole range of local authority work. The firm acts for several large local authority consortia, including EM Lawshare and the London Boroughs Legal Alliance, and helps individual local authorities across the country. It also has specialist expertise in fire authority work and is expanding its offer for schools and other educational bodies. Its police team is one of the largest in private range from the Metropolitan Police and the NW Consortium of Police Forces to smaller regional forces, such as Sussex and Cambridge Police.

Weightmans’ national healthcare team has been undertaking NHSLA clinical negligence work since 1998 and has been on the NHSLA panel since 2001. The firm’s healthcare advisory team advises over 140 NHS clients and undertakes work on behalf of a number of consortia, including the Healthcare Purchasing Consortium, the London Procurement Programme, NWCCA and the South East Coast Collaborative Procurement Hub. The team consists of legal specialists with expertise in clinical negligence, healthcare law, mental health, primary care, NHS and public, employment, property, and contract and commercial.

Number of UK partners 155
Number of other UK fee-earners 534