Having become managing partner of Sintons last year, Mark Quigley kicked off his tenure in ambitious style by unveiling his plans to grow the firm.
Mark is spearheading Sintons’ Strategy for Growth, which has seen the firm declare its goal of achieving £20m turnover by 2022, taking on around 50 new lawyers during that time to support its plans.
He has also detailed his vision for the firm to ‘set the standard for legal excellence’ as a further means to stand out from the crowd in the highly competitive legal sector, in which Sintons has established itself as a key regional – and often national – player.
With a number of impressive new client wins across its commercial group, and having attracted several new highcalibre lawyers, many of whom have relocated from outside of the region, such is their willingness to share in the firm’s vision. Sintons seems well-positioned to continue on its path of growth.
Sixteen months into his tenure as managing partner, and with his Strategy for Growth well underway, Mark – who was elected as managing partner in February 2017, having been with the firm as one of its Partners since 2005 – admits he is pleased with how plans are progressing.
“I would say it is so far, so good,!” says Mark. “We have a clear vision which everyone in the firm is aware of and is working towards. It is very much a collective endeavour and a shared vision.
“Our core value of offering a high quality legal service, tailored exactly to our clients’ needs, will remain unaffected by our growth. For generations, we have acted for businesses, families and individuals who value the difference we make to them, and that is the strong foundations we are building on.
“Sintons is known for being a strong and ambitious firm, certainly, that has been my view even since before I joined, when they moved into The Cube, which even back in 2004 was a big statement of intent. Now, our Strategy for Growth sends out the message that we are keen to push on even further.
“What our vision really focuses on is growing our commercial group.
“However, we remain very strong in litigation work, in insurance litigation, we continue to win work from major insurers, often against national competition, and the head of department Jamie McCabe is really preeminent in that sector, definitely in the North East but also nationally too.
“Equally, the growth of our neurotrauma team, which deals with catastrophic injury work, is a big growth area for us and the addition of John Davis (one of the UK’s leading lawyers in lifechanging injury work) has presented us with a great opportunity.”
As well as growing the business through attracting new clients – primarily into its commercial, employment, real estate and private client departments – the recruitment and retention of legal talent is a key factor for Mark.
“Already, we have taken on some very talented people who join us with strong reputations in their area of work, and that is an endorsement of what we are trying to achieve. Our recruitment strategy is informed by our growth plans. We are actively looking to appoint lawyers who complement our existing expertise so that we can improve the quality of the service we are able to provide. This has led to the recent appointment of high-calibre people in areas such as real estate finance, NHS healthcare, contentious probate and, most recently, we have welcomed a solicitor with extensive industry experience who has a particular focus on businesses in the new technologies sector.
“If we are to both attract and retain the best lawyers around then we need to continually work hard to make sure that we offer attractive financial packages, good quality work and meaningful career paths.
“I believe joining Sintons is a very attractive proposition and we were keen to incorporate this into the Strategy for Growth. This is a very welcoming environment to join and we will do everything we can to ensure internal cohesion to keep the Sintons ethos while we grow.
“The firm is collegiate’ in the sense that we have different departments occupying different floors of the building, but we are keen to promote interaction and shared dynamic between them. For example, we have a social fund to allow teams to socialise out of hours, we had a 4.30pm finish before last Bank Holiday weekend and invited everyone to the boardroom to have a drink – these are just some of the little things we do to help develop Sintons as an enjoyable place to work.”
