THE north’s largest law firm Carson McDowell has reached the significant milestone of employing 100 lawyers for the first time, over half of whom are female.
By recruiting Lynsay Black to the firm’s banking team, Carson McDowell (it has a total headcount of 180) is the first Northern Ireland law firm to achieve this landmark number.
The growth has come across all areas of the business, with solicitors at all levels joining practice areas including corporate, planning, construction, banking, healthcare, regulatory and professional discipline, employment, real estate, litigation, IT & technology in the past year.
The firm - which achieved its best-ever rankings in the 2020 editions of the legal profession’s two most respected industry guides Chambers UK and the Legal 500 - also expanded its healthcare team in Dublin last year, moving to larger offices to accommodate the expected future growth of this practice area.
Managing partner Roger McMillan said: “We have always been fully focused on delivering for our clients and it is testament to the quality of our service that demand for our advice and support continues to rise. We are fortunate to represent a large number of commercially sophisticated local businesses and high-profile international clients operating in and from Northern Ireland.
“The firm has been good at identifying niche services not provided by other firms in the region and investing in expertise in fast growing sectors like energy and technology.
“We are optimistic about 2020 and expect to continue our long-standing policy of hiring and developing the best talent across all practice areas. Indeed, with the offers that have already been accepted, we expect to have close to 110 solicitors by the end of March, which would place us in the top 10 largest firms on the island of Ireland.”
He added: “The firm has almost twice as many female solicitors as it does male and indeed has more female than male partners. We are fiercely proud of this statistic, which further demonstrates our unique position in Northern Ireland.”
In the Chambers 2020 listing Carson McDowell achieved ‘band one’ rating in 21 out of 26 practice areas and 23 partners were given the top accolade while in Legal 500, it had the highest number of practice areas ranked in the top tier category and had more solicitors named as “leading individuals” than any other firm in the north.
