'Genuine pride': Law firm Addleshaw Goddard celebrates 250 years in Leeds as it targets £1bn aim

That’s not only because the city is not only home to more than 750 of its employees, but is also the location it traces its roots back to.

Back in 1775, solicitor Nicholas Smith founded the firm which eventually became Booth and Co, with a series of mergers and acquisitions resulting it becoming Addleshaw Booth & Co in 1997 before changing to its current iteration as Addleshaw Goddard from 2003.

It has set ambitions to become a £1 billion a year turnover business by 2030 – with its most recent annual results revealing it is currently at £550m – while it was recently named UK Law Firm of the Year at the British Legal Awards.

While the way in which commercial law operates has changed and evolved down the generations to an even greater extent than the company’s name, Lucy Sturrock, the woman who heads the company’s Leeds office says consistent values have played a key part in its ongoing success.

Lucy, who is originally from Sussex but joined the firm when it was Booth & Co in 1993 as a trainee after studying in Yorkshire, says this was brought home by a celebration evening in September to mark the 250th anniversary with clients and ex-colleagues.

She explains: "John Pike, one of our retired partners, said that partnership is about leaving a business stronger than when you found it.

"I just think we’ve been successful in having a series of people who have been committed to the business, who wanted to see it grow, who’ve been ambitious and it has built and built and built.

"When we were having these celebrations, having so many partners who still felt pride in this business, even though they might have left it 30 or 40 years ago was phenomenal.

"I was actually a trainee at Booth & Co back in 1993 when it was a single office and now I’ve been head of office for a year-and-a-half. I’m a little bit wiser now but the things that are the same are a genuine pride in the business. For me, that is about ambition, but it is also making sure it is inclusive ambition so that everyone is growing and that we keep the core of our culture.

"I want this to be a place where people have pride in working, who enjoy working, who like the people they work with, whether it is their colleagues or their clients.

"We have brilliant lawyers and brilliant clients but it is keeping that core of making it a place everybody can take pride in.”

In addition to her role as head of the Leeds office, Lucy is also a real estate partner whose CV includes extensive work with the likes of Primark, Sainsbury’s and Travelodge.

As co-chair of the firm’s hotel sector, she says she was particularly pleased to be part of bringing an impressive new Hyatt hotel to Leeds recently.

"That was brilliant to work on, a really interesting piece of legal work. We put in a new model of the way of holding a lease that helped allow more investment into operational access. It was a very different and cutting-edge lease. But as exciting as that is, it is more exciting to have a roof terrace next to our office!

“It was our expertise that won us that piece of work. Seeing it go up every day was brilliant.”

While she is not a “lifer”, having done a couple of years at a different law firm before Addleshaw Goddard had its own London office, Lucy says the scale and evolution of the company means there are always fresh challenges to grasp.

"There’s so many different opportunities within the organisation to do different things so you are never going to be bored.

"There’s always something that pushes you to do something slightly more ambitious or slightly different. We’ve gone through many mergers and each time, it has given us different opportunities in different jurisidictions or it has brought a different skillset.

"So although many people have been here many years their job role has kept changing, and refreshing and being interesting. I think the thread for me is it has always been a very supportive firm. If you’ve had an idea or want to do something, you will find the support for it. That has allowed a lot of people to stay here and keep their job interesting.

"The Leeds office in particular has a lot of people who have been here decades.” Internationally, the firm boasts more than 5,000 clients including hundreds of listed companies.

Lucy says of its Leeds presence: "We are lucky to have clients who have been with us for decades – the building societies, the banks, the institutional landlords and also some of the big retailers.

"One of our strengths is we are genuinely full service in Leeds. There is nothing a client could throw at us other than maybe a speeding ticket that we couldn’t deal with. I think that probably distinguishes us a little bit from some of the other national firms that have offices in Leeds.”

She adds while all clients can expect quality of advice, local knowledge is also a plus.

“It is nice to have people on your doorstep who understand the local market but also have a national reach and an international reach.

"I think Yorkshire people like doing business with Yorkshire people. We are very much a national and international law firm but very heavily anchored in Leeds and very proud to be in Leeds."

While the international business is looking to nearly double in size by 2030 and is moving with the times to make use of AI in supporting the work of its lawyers, Lucy says core principles won’t be changing.

"The challenges are continuing to ensure we have our culture at the very heart of what we do so that while we grow, we retain the things that have made us successful and special for the last 250 years.”