Self-styled “challenger” law firm gunnercooke has officially opened a new Leeds hub with 20 senior Yorkshire partners.
The corporate and commercial firm, which operates nationally from offices in Manchester and London, has now come to Yorkshire to offer a service that its says doesn’t currently exist in the area.
Some of the most high profile lawyers that have joined the firm include Nick Hawkins, a former corporate Barrister at St Philips and Conservative MP; Mark Burns, the former managing director at Clarion; and Simon Robinson, an employment lawyer with over 19 years experience at some of the UK’s biggest firms including Gordons and Ford and Warren.
Founded in 2010 by Darryl Cooke and Sarah Goulbourne, gunnercooke only recruits lawyers with a minimum of 10,000 hours practising experience who work collaboratively with clients. The firm also dispenses with hourly billing and time recording. It offers advice in banking and finance, private equity, dispute resolution, IT, IP, real estate and construction, commercial contracts, health and safety, tax, employment and pensions, planning, environmental issues, and financial services regulation.
Cooke says that he founded the firm with Goulbourne as they believed the old legal model was “broken”.
“I decided to make a change,” he said.
“We set about to create a new model to attract lawyers and clients to follow us and set a new precedent for the delivery of legal services.
“We’re a law firm where the client comes first, we focus on business and individual needs rather than timesheets. We’re excited to be extending our bespoke model into Yorkshire with the opening of our new Leeds hub. We believe we can offer a service which doesn’t currently exist in the area as well as tapping into the wealth of expertise that we are keen to recruit.”
“Having a central Yorkshire hub location for our lawyers is a natural progression for us,” he added.
“We have a well-established regional team with local roots and corporate firm experience. We are confident that through our unique structure that allows agility and autonomy, they will deliver an outstanding service to any work they undertake.”
