The days when local companies were forced down the M11 or A1 to London to find decent quality legal advice have vanished into the mists of antiquity. It is hard to put exact figures on the value of work that formerly haemorrhaged from the East of England to the City but it racked up to many millions of pounds over the years.

If there has been an exodus in the last two years it has been one-way traffic – towards the East of England. London lawyers have increasingly joined firms in this region and clients have followed them. In their own right, East of England practices have added strength in personnel and legal disciplines covered.

A number of high profile mergers have lifted some firms into a different league. Again it is a guestimate, but the volumes of international work now being handled by the region’s top law firms collectively has pretty much doubled in the last two years. Several of the best local firms have opened offices in London, which will help leverage more quality instructions.

Business Weekly’s legal elite is therefore a club worth being a member of.

The major legal guides don’t like to upset the big firms so don’t enjoy splitting certain practices in their rankings. To a certain extent that is something of a cop-out – albeit a commercially sensible one – but there are only two instances where we genuinely cannot find any reason to split the firms concerned.

Solicitors
1   Mills & Reeve
2   Taylor Vinters
3= Hewitsons and Birketts
4   Eversheds
5   Howes Percival
6= Greenwoods and Buckles
7  Ashton KCJ
8  Tees
9  Charles Russell
10 Taylor Wessing

There is no disputing the number one law firm in the East of England. Mills & Reeve bestrides that pinnacle – and the feedback obtained by Business Weekly over the last year bears out the findings of both The Legal 500 and Chambers UK legal guides.

In terms of both the leading individual lawyers and volume of number one rankings in the various areas of law, Mills & Reeve set a new, red hot pace. The firm claimed almost a fifth of the leading individuals for East Anglia named by The Legal 500 – 15 out of 78 – and broke its own record by claiming 33 number one rankings for different areas of the law.

With Chambers and Partners, Mills & Reeve was placed in the top five firms in the UK – in terms of numbers of top tier rankings. Almost 60 per cent of the firm’s 45 rankings were in the top tier.

Mills & Reeve benefited by luring two top lawyers from local rival Eversheds – Ian Mather and Anthony McGurk – to boost the firm’s employment and corporate law offerings.

Graeme Menzies did fantastic work for the practice in the international arena, doing much to strengthen links with powerhouse centres in the US and Asia. Isabel Napper and her team in the Life Sciences sphere again excelled and Mills & Reeve’s work in the education sector was world-class.

Taylor Vinters fights off strong competition to claim second place in our rankings. Its work quality and volumes from both Cambridge and London were ramped up to impressive levels in 2011 and the firm’s advisory skills in the international arena paid handsome dividends. Steered astutely by Matt Meyer, the firm was among the first to leverage the power of the web and social media and its switched-on strategy has rightly generated an image of an eclectic and market savvy firm across geographical boundaries and industry frontiers.

We couldn’t split the outstanding Hewitsons and Birketts in third position. Both have packed on muscle in the last 12 months. Helen Drayton, in the corporate team at Hewitsons, had a stunning year. The hire of Martin Smith from top London firm Finers Stephens Innocent for the commercial property group, was an inspired and timely move.

Birketts consolidated the merger with Wollastons in an impressively seamless fashion and managed to expand the Cambridge offices at the same time. The corporate team, led by Adrian Seagers, had another outstanding year. Clients of both Hewitsons and Birketts stressed “enjoying dealing with their personable lawyers” and “value for money” service.

Fourth placed Eversheds bounced back superbly after losing Ian Mather and Anthony McGurk to Mills & Reeve. The two Simons, Tytherleigh and Crossley, collared the strategy and breathed new life and fire into the Cambridge office. Talent was promoted to levels where it could shine and partner-level new recruits brought in fresh expertise and dynamism. Glynne Stanfield remained a rock and his work in the education sphere remains world-class.

Howes Percival shook the foundations of the established regional heavyweights by breaking into that elite group in the Legal 500 guide. The firm invested in new people, new offices and new services. New satellite offices in London and Manchester spread its reach and a string of high calibre partner appointments led to the expansion of core departments. The commercial property team looked a real force.

Barristers
1 Fenners Chambers

The East of England also boasts the number one barristers’ chambers in the whole of the South East in Fenners. That’s some achievement. The Legal 500 guide was spot on when it said Fenners “consistently provides high-quality representation.”

Patent & Trade Mark attorneys
1  Mathys & Squire
2  Venner Shipley
3  Boult Wade Tennant
4  Marks & Clerk

The region’s representation of Patent & Trade Mark attorneys has grown in the last 12 months. New practices have moved in; established firms have expanded – principally Mathys & Squire and Venner Shipley.

We make Mathys & Squire our number one for the second successive year. Cambridge alumnus Ilya Kazi presided over another strong year of growth with the firm expanding into new Cambridge offices. Its teams in Cambridge and elsewhere were expanded significantly with new attorneys in the Life Sciences, IT and engineering practice areas adding to the firm’s strength.

Alan MacDougall, who heads up the Cambridge office, is highly popular with clients for his no-nonsense, pragmatic advice. He has a supreme grasp of his own area but also works hard to understand clients’ strategies and technologies so that his advice is always relevant. His “excellent bedside manner” was appreciated.

Team members understand the broader issues – law and policy changes that affect Intellectual Property protection – and fit comfortably with the increasing internationalisation of the Cambridge and East of England business landscape.

Venner Shipley consolidated its strong offering from Cambridge in 2011 under the sure guidance of Pawel Piotrowicz. Clients said they loved working with Venner Shipley attorneys “with their strong people skills.”

Piotrowicz is credited with having “ a sound grasp” of Cambridge technology companies’ global growth requirements.

Boult Wade Tennant and Marks & Clerk are also highly rated in the Cambridge tech cluster.

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Graeme Menzies, Mills & Reeve