Law firm CMS continues to grow its construction team in Manchester with the hire of two new associates

Andrew Wood is a senior lawyer who joins from the London office of international firm Taylor Wessing – the fifth lawyer to relocate from the capital to join the Manchester construction team in the last couple of years.  Andrew is a non-contentious construction specialist and has experience across a range of sectors including commercial development, healthcare and energy.

Victoria Adeyemi joins from Riverview, the ‘NewLaw’ business owned by international accountancy giant EY.  Victoria also joins the non-contentious construction team.

The CMS energy, projects, and construction team in Manchester was started from scratch by partner Chris Hallam when he joined from Pinsent Masons in March 2016.  The team now has 13 lawyers in Manchester and we understand are set to grow further in 2020 with more recruits – including at partner level – in the pipeline.

In late 2017 CMS lured highly regarded construction disputes expert Nigel Lewis to leave the Birmingham office of trans-Atlantic firm Gowling WLG, his base for the previous 18 years, to join Chris to build the team’s contentious construction offering in Manchester.  They have since added Nick Case from Herbert Smith Freehills London office as a senior associate, amongst others.

CMS is the fifth largest law firm on the planet and boasts over 75 offices in 45 locations around the world.  The Manchester office of CMS is at 1 The Avenue in Spinningfields, and was set up to focus on real estate, construction, infrastructure, and corporate law – but has recently added further specialist teams for commercial litigation, finance, pensions and tax.  The office has more than doubled in size over the last year and is set to grow further as the firm has made a commitment to its ‘One North’ strategy of further developing its offices in Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield.

The construction team is currently advising on many high-profile projects in the North West and beyond, including the Mayfield regeneration, where the firm is the sole legal advisor to the Mayfield Partnership, led by developer U+I, which is pressing forward with £1.2 billion overhaul of a 22 acre brownfield site next to Piccadilly Station.  They are also working on Renaker’s Deansgate Square skyscraper cluster; Ask:Patrizia’s £200m+ new arena and conference centre on the banks of the Tyne River in Gateshead; the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station; and Far East Consortium’s £1bn Northern Gateway, a 15,000-home masterplan stretching from Victoria Station to Collyhurst.