Specialist family law firm Hall Brown has opened an office in Yorkshire after a significant increase in workload.
Hall Brown has opened its new office in Sheffield to service an increasing amount of workload originating from east of the Pennines.
The firm will be based in one of Sheffield’s newest prime locations at The Balance office development on Leopold Square.
Alison Fernandes has joined from Irwin Mitchell to head up Hall Brown’s new Sheffield office.
Fernandes spent a total of 15 years at Irwin Mitchell in two separate spells. Most recently, she had jointly led that firm’s family law team in the city, having also been responsible for opening and running the family team in its Cambridge office.
She becomes the latest in a succession of senior recent appointments for Hall Brown, following the recruitment last autumn of Naomi Rainey, a former director with Vardags, and Mike Devlin, a former president of the Law Society in Manchester and head of family law at Stephensons, the previous month.
Last month, Hall Brown made a string of promotions, including elevating Izzy Walsh to the rank of partner, a year after she joined the firm as head of its expanded London office at Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
The Yorkshire announcement caps a successful 12 months for Hall Brown, which has grown to 40 staff (29 of whom are fee-earners) just four years after opening its doors for the first time.
During the last full financial year, Hall Brown’s turnover topped £3.54 million—an increase of £1 million on the previous 12 months.
Senior partner Sam Hall outlined how changes to working practices made necessary by the ongoing coronavirus lockdown had not affected the firm’s ability to support clients and would not affect operations in Sheffield.
Hall said: “We have been quite able to adapt to these exceptional circumstances. That is something which has arguably become even more important because although many people’s routines have been transformed, family life goes on and has arguably become more intense due to everyone having to spend more time at home.”
“Furthermore, we are confident that our office in Sheffield will be able to cope just as well as those in Manchester and London during the current situation and once the restrictions are lifted.”
He continued: “We have seen our launches in Manchester and London thoroughly vindicated by a dramatic rise in caseload, so it made perfect sense to us to open an office in yet another area which has generated an increasing amount of work.”
“We’re delighted that Alison has agreed to lead our efforts in Yorkshire, given that she is so experienced and so very highly thought of by clients and peers alike. It underlines our commitment to ensure the highest quality of support possible. We’re looking to announce a series of further appointments in the near future.”
“This is an exciting departure for us and we are extremely confident in our ability to deliver results.”
