Lupton Fawcett and Lee & Priestley join forces

The enlarged firm will trade as Lupton Fawcett Lee & Priestley and will have around 270 staff with more than 130 executives.

Lupton Fawcett has offices in both Leeds and Sheffield. In 2009, it acquired the commercial and private client business of Leeds firm Fox Hayes and then it bought Hackett Windle, a niche firm of solicitors and chartered tax advisers based in Sheffield.

Leeds-based Lee & Priestley can trace its roots back to the early years of the last century and the Bradford practice of James A Lee.

Richard Marshall, Lupton Fawcett Lee & Priestley’s managing director, said: “The addition of the first class team from Lee & Priestley represents a great step forward in our journey to achieve our strategy of developing the firm best capable of meeting the needs of our regions wealth creators for commercial advice in their business capacities, and their need for wealth preservation services in their private capacities; I am delighted to welcome our new colleagues and know that together we can better serve our much valued clients.”

James Richardson, the former managing partner of Lee & Priestley will join Lupton Fawcett Lee & Priestley’s management board, and its strategy board.

Mr Richardson said: “We are delighted to be able to bring Lupton Fawcett’s breadth of offering to our clients, whilst at the same time being able to boost Lupton Fawcett’s offering in so many areas, together we are well placed to meet the challenges of an increasingly demanding and sophisticated market.”

Lupton Fawcett Lee & Priestley said it will increase its focus on developing the firm’s Sheffield and South Yorkshire offering.

Mr Marshall said: “We are very interested to speak to first class Sheffield lawyers wanting to make themselves and their teams part of Lupton Fawcett Lee & Priestley’s fast developing and exciting future. We fully intend to grow our South Yorkshire offering to respond to the needs of that market with the help of the best talent in that area.”

The legal sector is bracing itself for accelerated change following the introduction of the Legal Services Act, which allows non-lawyers to invest in law firms for the first time. This is expected to usher in a wave of consolidation in the highly fragmented sector.