When a law firm more than doubles in size in a year, it’s going to attract attention. When it continues its recruitment drive and is on track to double in size again by the end of 2019, it’s doing something right!
In July 2017, Millican Law, formerly Peter Millican Law, was a successful specialist law firm with four fee earners advising corporate clients. With word spreading, and new clients seeking out the firm, the Management Team put together a strategy for growth, one that saw them expand to nine fee earners by July 2018. The recruitment drive continues with plans to bring on board a Senior Associate, an Associate Solicitor and two Trainee Solicitors early in 2019, and more vacancies expected to be advertised later in the year.
To reflect the fact that the firm has developed a broader, stronger team, and is no longer completely focussed around the firm’s founder, Peter Millican, the decision was made recently to rebrand the name to Millican Law.
Millican Law is not only ‘getting it right’ with its clients, it’s also attracting – and keeping – high calibre staff who appreciate the firm’s ethos. Peter Millican, the firm’s founder, commented: “It’s important that our staff have the opportunity to forge their own careers, to take responsibility for bringing in and delivering work, and it’s just as important that they are then recognised for their achievements. This makes for a strong team who work together and support one another. We tap into one another’s areas of expertise to give our clients the best advice possible.
“And the clients appreciate it because not only do they stay with us, they recommend us too, and send their contacts our way. The fact that we are retained to act for six regional law firms in respect of the said firms’ personal work, speaks volumes for how Millican Law is viewed.”
Peter founded the firm in 2004 to allow corporate clients to tap into his wealth of legal expertise amassed working with Dickinson Dees and in Northern Rock plc’s Group Legal and Compliance team. As client numbers increased, Peter brought Rhaynor Garvin on board and together with the other team members, they have steered the company’s relocation to Newcastle and growth strategy.
Managing Partner Rhaynor Garvin is now overseeing the firm’s relocation into much needed, much larger, city centre offices in The Pearl on Northumberland Street. Her career path is a clear indicator of the opportunities within Millican Law, having joined Peter as a paralegal 12 years ago. She says: “We’re attracting some of the region’s best corporate lawyers because we offer them many of the benefits of working for a much bigger firm, but with a working environment that is friendly and supportive – and ambitious at the same time.
“Millican Law is firmly rooted in the North East. We love the place and the people, and we bring our North East values to everything we do. That means that we’re attracting clients from beyond this area, but our approach is always the same. We’re here to give our clients pragmatic advice, based on our combined experience and our collective strong moral core. Our clients trust us not just to know the law, but to apply that so that it is commercially appropriate to them.”
Millican Law’s team works for company owners, businesses, local authorities and the public sector, and has extensive experience in business sales; acquisitions; restructuring; management buy-outs; private equity; corporate finance and banking. It also specialises in core business contract documentation such as employment contracts; Director’s service agreements; partnership agreements; shareholder agreements, and terms of business as well as transactional commercial property; commercial property leases and landlord and tenant work.
Peter added: “The most important feedback comes from our clients and they regularly tell us what they value; that we’re personable, and reliable, that we understand the way their business works and will go above and beyond to meet their deadlines. When a client reviewed us saying we combine quality commercial advice with a strong sense of customer service, and fairly structured fixed fee pricing, we knew we were on the right track.”
Millican Law is always interested in hearing from experienced lawyers, or trainee solicitors who believe that they will work well within the firm’s specialist teams, and relish being given the freedom to drive forward their own career, build their own areas of practice and their own professional contact networks within the context of also developing the firm.
Specific roles being recruited for currently include two Trainee Solicitors who will be required to fit into the busy team from day one, working closely with fellow staff and with new and existing clients. Trainees will be part of a structured training programme designed to ensure their success in the shorter and longer term.
Millican Law is also recruiting an Associate Solicitor with experience in mergers, acquisitions, restructuring and management buy-outs, and a Senior Associate to grow and develop the firm’s London Office. The right people will be key members of this growing team and will be supported to achieve their own full career potential.
