A merger is announced
When it comes to naming law firms, three letters and a two-syllable word seems to be the fashion these days. First came DLA Piper, then SNR Denton followed suit in 2010 and now we have DAC Beachcroft, created by a tie-up between Beachcroft and Davies Arnold Cooper. We’d better make clear immediately the fact that as this book went to print, the merger had been officially announced, but had not yet taken place. The trainees we spoke to were Beachcroft trainees, not DAC ones. Their summary of the situation: “Everyone's excited.”
We have featured Davies Arnold Cooper in the True Picture in the past, though, and can tell you that it had offices in London and Manchester as well as one in Madrid and a strong Latin American presence. Back in 1999 the firm went through a radical reorganisation and changed from a full-service sort of outfit to one that specialised in two key areas: insurance and property. Since Beachcroft is also a leader for insurance work, you can see the thinking behind this merger. The new combined firm will bestride the insurance market like a colossus (although it will have some competition, as two other insurance giants, Clyde and Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, have also just merged).
It's not just insurance: other practice areas will complement each other too. For example, Davies Arnold Cooper's life sciences expertise will slot in nicely alongside Beachcroft's top-tier Chambers UK rankings across the country for healthcare, defendant personal injury, and clinical negligence. Its Madrid office will add to ones that Beachcroft already occupies in Singapore and New Zealand. “This is the realisation of our international ambitions,” say trainees. It's clear that Beachcroft is looking beyond these shores, although sources added that any further expansion will be “very targeted” – no DLA Piper-esque 'offices everywhere' strategy is likely to emerge.
Beachcroft was on the up even before the merger was announced. In 2008, a Newcastle office was opened through the hire of a 27-strong clin neg team from Eversheds. In addition to this, a Dublin office opened its doors in 2009 (again with a focus on the insurance and healthcare sectors), while the demise of Halliwells in 2010 was an opportunity to augment the firm's Manchester office by way of a ten-partner healthcare team from the failed firm.
Early in 2010 Beachcroft told us of its plans for the reform of its training contract, including the reduction of overall numbers from 60 to 30. It also deferred ten out of 29 of the September 2010 starters for a year, saying this was the fallout from changes brought about by the Legal Services Act and cost reviews by its insurer clients driving legal fees (and so the demand for trainees) down. Although the near-halving of an intake at short notice “created a difficult time for everyone involved,” current Beachcroft trainees are certain that “no one has lost out in the long run.”
Risky businesses
Beachcroft's trainees can take seats in four of its offices: Leeds, Manchester, London and Bristol. Its offices in Newcastle and Winchester specialise in insurance and healthcare, while Birmingham concentrates on construction and injury risk. There are no compulsory seats, but you should probably expect at least one in an insurance-related area. Trainees pointed to “the wide variety of choice,” available at a firm “which still has a commercial backbone.” Insurance seats are available in injury risk (including property risk) and professional indemnity. Trainees in injury risk may be in the subgroups of catastrophic injury or health and safety claims. All insurance seats involve mainly defendant work – for professional indemnity insurers like Chartis, Zurich and Allianz – or for employers themselves. Beachcroft acts for the MoD, BP and British Airways.
Trainees often spend six months of their first year in either injury risk or professional indemnity. Dealing with matters at the lower end of the financial scale, trainees in injury risk defend claims of stress, industrial disease and “people getting injured working in factories and in supermarkets.” With claims ranging from £5,000 to £50,000, it is “a good seat to get your teeth stuck into litigation and learn about the process in a relatively safe environment.” Trainees reported getting involved with “everything – research and drafting, as well as going to meetings with barristers, interviewing witnesses, going to site inspections and attending hearings.” Towards the end of their six months, they may get trusted with bigger claims. The Leeds team recently defended a claim involving a fatality and a medical oxygen cylinder that proved, after testing, not to be faulty. It also handled a claim for spinal cord damage after the claimant pushed a large vehicle during the course of their employment, and settled a claim from a property developer who sustained serious brain injuries after being thrown from a truck.
Professional indemnity involves defending “solicitors, architects and financial advisers,” among others (trainees filled us in on claims involving a hairdresser and a wedding photographer), against allegations of negligence. Claims against conveyancers in particular have been rife during the recession: “Following the sub-prime mortgage crisis, we have to give a lot of coverage advice to find out if conveyancers have been dishonest,” one trainee explained. Defending solicitors too, can provoke some soul-searching: “You think how easy it is for things to get out of hand,” mused a source. “It's certainly a good learning curve for seeing how you should conduct yourself professionally.” On mediations, because “these claims are high-value and there's more at stake,” trainees may be putting together bundles, “compiling CVs of mediators, making travel arrangements and booking rooms” in preparation, while when the event comes around they will be “taking a detailed notes of the day” – pretty vital, as “if the matter doesn't settle, you have to go back and see what the other side made of their case.”
Property risk largely involves defence of property damage, but increasingly the emphasis is on risk management. A recent project involved the relocation of Blackburn indoor market. Trainees were trusted with the job of ending the tenancies, drafting the new documents, and then travelling to Blackburn to complete everything. “It was exhausting but incredibly important work,” said one. “To get to be an ambassador for the firm was excellent, as was spending the day with the client. You realise that these stalls are their livelihoods.” A specialist construction risk seat operates in the Leeds office.
Because they're worth it
"There is a career for a non-insurance litigator at Beachcroft,” trainees agreed, but it does depend on the location. If you want corporate work, the London and Bristol offices are probably your best bet. The mid-market M&A practice is ranked alongside small to mid-size City firms firms like RPC and Farrer. Following the recession's slowing of the corporate market, Beachcroft's practice has been helped by instructions from its insurance clients such as AXA and Zurich. Trainees reported working on “the placing of an AIM-listed company, working on business restructurings and acting for management in a management buyout.” Following the coalition's changes to NHS foundation trusts, Beachcroft has dealt with much of the paperwork – evidence of the firm gaining further corporate instructions from its key clients in the healthcare sector. On these deals, trainees will be involved with anything from “the 'typical' trainee jobs to drafting clauses and negotiating parts of the document.”
The changes to foundation trusts have also provided work for Beachcroft's employment team, while private sector clients include Arcadia, McDonald's, Pets at Home and Roadchef. Beachcroft deals with “a wide range of defence claims” including "many race and sex discrimination cases,” and increasingly, due to Ken Clarke's legal aid reforms, involving litigants in person. The employment tribunal process is “designed to be as simple as possible,” but having clients determined to represent themselves can be tricky to manage: “They often don't understand the need for them to prove their case, and they're more abrasive than other clients.” Again, trainees who have prepared trial bundles can attend court: “Normally it's looking after the client and witnesses, but there are also things we might pick up on that counsel might not.”
The real estate group predominantly undertakes commercial work for “retail tenants and public bodies.” The firm acts for shopping centre giant Westfield Group in the issues relating to its existing centres, and recently advised on the opening of a new Stratford mall. It also worked on L'Oréal's new boutique in London's Royal Exchange, and has been busy on matters relating to the opening of several new sites for long-term client Waitrose. For trainees, real estate is always “good for client contact,” as “they can ring you at any time asking questions, which keeps you on your toes.” They also get to “draft leases and rent agreements.” Some offices also act on residential sales, but only for “high net worth clients” referred from, say, the corporate department. The forthcoming merger will double the size of the real estate department at a stroke, and will bring lots of exciting new clients (DAC currently works for Barratt Homes, EDF Energy, Galliford Try, Nationwide and Persimmon).
Stairway to Bristol
In Bristol, Beachcroft inhabits three out of five floors of a “big and colourful” building with a village green-style atrium at its centre and a free-flowing staircase - meaning, “it's not just open-plan on the floors, but open-plan through the floors.” All employees are in a pod-style seating arrangement: “Even the big-cheese partners were told they couldn't have their own offices, so there's really no visible hierarchy.” Bristol trainees are reasonably sociable, but “you get different personalities – some are into e-mailing at 5pm that day, some like to know if they're going out two weeks in advance.” As a messy end to their first year, trainees get together for two days to “paint a massive mural and throw eggs against walls.”
The Manchester gang recently moved to an open-plan office in the “mini-Canary Wharf” that is the new Spinningfields complex. A move to hot-desking (where employees share work space) is working “brilliantly well.” The office is “socially relaxed” and “has the culture of a much smaller practice.” Socialising tends to be “ad hoc” but trainees do enjoy end-of-month free drinks “where the staff room will be filled with different sorts of alcohol.”
Leeds employees work from two offices: “One for commercial and one for health work – personal injury and clinical negligence.” This can mean there's a “slight social divide,” and there is talk of a move to one building in the near future. The social scene “has got better over the last couple of years,” and we heard of staff participating in the Leeds Race for All and the Manuel Bravo project, which provides immigration advice to asylum seekers. Between trainees, it's “never rare for an e-mail to go round on Friday, asking what time we are getting out of the office.”
As in Leeds, the Londoners work from two locations: an office on Fetter Lane with a commercial focus and one in Eastcheap which concentrates on insurance and litigation (a third office exists on Lime Street with no trainees). Davies Arnold Cooper also has two offices in the City so no doubt there will be moves to bring everyone under one roof in the near future. People go “for informal drinks after work – it's not crazy, but if you want it, it's there.”
And finally...
Taking in the slant towards insurance, healthcare and real estate, there is much on offer at this expanding firm. In 2011, 25 out of 31 qualifiers remained with the firm as NQs.