Mace & Jones family team promoted to Legal 500 ‘top tier’

Published: 15th September 2008

Mace & Jones family law team has become only the second North West law firm to be promoted to top tier status in Legal 500, the legal industry bible.

Mace & Jones head of family law Carole Atkinson said the promotion of her 13 strong team is testament to its skills set, energy and hard work.

"It is a tremendous vote of confidence in the team to win this promotion to the highest level," she said. "Legal 500 is an independent study and the views of our peers and our clients are extremely important when reaching decisions on ranking. We have built a formidable team here with a broad cross section of expertise and qualifications at the highest level operating from our three offices in Liverpool, Manchester and Knutsford. This promotion is very much a vindication of our approach which is always tough but equally always fair and proactive."

The report describes Mace & Jones as having a 'cracking' family team. Carole Atkinson is someone who ' makes the so-called "Magic Circle" firms look ordinary'; 'partner Emma Collins is 'extremely bright' while partner Tina Dunn is commended for her ' very clear advice'. It is noted that Tina acted for client in a divorce where assets exceeded £6m.

Mace & Jones family team specializes in high value divorce cases. This work includes resolving finance and child related issues such as contact and joint residence. The team further works at protecting finances through pre-nuptial agreements as well as advising co-habitees on protecting finance and resolving relationship breakdown. Five of the team are trained collaborative lawyers. Collaborative law is a relatively new non confrontational way of resolving issues which arise from relationship breakdown.

The 2009 edition of Legal 500 an independent analysis of the leading law firms in the UK and was published this week.

Legal 500 background

Legal 500 was the first clients' guide to law firms and, over 18 years, has developed into the largest survey of the UK legal market.

Researchers analyse the practices of more than 800 law firms nationwide. Understanding the firms is one aspect of the research process, but editors also rely on their own database of clients, gathering their views on the firms. More than 20,000 copies of the book are distributed free every year, and many clients using the website, http://www.legal500.com/. The book is mainly a reference tool for buyers of legal services, but law firms find it of interest as an insight into the competition. Editors and researchers at Legal 500 look at the size and strength of each firm - strength being gauged by clients' views. The researchers interview their database of more than 3,000 clients, including investment banks, companies and others. Firms are judged according to who their clients are, individual lawyers who have credibility with top clients; a strong technical ability for complex work; capacity for large transactions and cases; market share; track record; progress with gaining new clients; reputation; IT use and perception in the market.