On 31st October, the team at Express were excited to announce that we had successfully acquired North-West based, Personal Injury law firm Michael W Halsall Solicitors.
Michael W Halsall Solicitors, an established law firm that specialised in Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence claims has provided an exceptional standard of service to clients since being founded in 1987.
The acquisition of Michael W Halsall Solicitors brought an additional 37 experienced staff, which increased our total workforce to over 500 people. It also provided 2,500 live Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence cases to add to our existing workload.
As part of the deal, we also took on Michael W Halsall’s premises, a large modern office space in Newton-le-Willows, near Liverpool, which we are continuing to occupy in order to reduce disruption for the teams that have been commuting to this local area for over 20 years.
Express Solicitors have the ambition to become the UK’s leading personal injury law firm. The acquisition of this established law firm is bringing us one step closer to achieving this long held goal, for which we have set out a road map to help us achieve over the coming years.
Our Head of Road Traffic Accidents department, Kimberley Kirkby has taken charge of coordinating the integration of the newly acquired firm. She will be working directly in the new Newton-Le-Willow office for the foreseeable future to ensure that the transition runs smoothly and with as little disruption as possible.
Integrating a long-established law firm into our own is no easy task and is currently being made possible by the hard work and collaboration of the former Michael W Halsall teams alongside our Human Resource, IT, Marketing and Senior Management team, including Liam Wynne (Operations), Carole Jones (Human Resources) and Stephen Bolton (Finance).
Throughout the acquisition process we called upon Liverpool based long term corporate law specialists O’Connors Solicitors for guidance while Michael W Halsall Solicitors were advised by Clarke Wilmott, based in Manchester.
When asked about the acquisition, Michael W Halsall’s outgoing Director, Ian Halsall said:
“We are very pleased to find a suitable firm to look after our staff, the firm’s heritage and finding the right fit was very important to us. We are pleased to see during our dealings with Express Solicitors that they are committed to client care, staff welfare and progression and wish them every success”.
Our Managing Partner, James Maxey said:
“We’re delighted to have acquired such an excellent firm with a long-standing reputation of helping injured people. We look forward to welcoming the talented staff at Michael W Halsall Solicitors on-board and this will assist in our growth. We will continue to operate from their modern premises in Newton-le-Willows. The Directors Ian and Nial have done a fantastic job building up Michael W Halsall Solicitors to the level it is now.
“An exceptional service will continue for the ex-Michael W Halsall Solicitors, now Express Solicitors’ clients, aided by a smooth integration of our Proclaim case management systems. Both IT departments and legal teams are working closely together to provide a seamless transition”.
2022 has been an exciting year for the express team with several milestone events occurring in a short space of time.
In September we were proud to announce that we had been ranked as a top 100 firm in The Lawyer’s Top 200 UK Law Firms ranking, a widely recognised and highly regarded annual report which judges firms based on their annual turnover. It also factors in and scrutinises other key metrics including profit per equity partner. Becoming a top 100 firm has been a long-held ambition for all at Express and we hope to keep climbing the rankings.
Also in September, our Senior Partner, Daniel Slade was shortlisted as a finalist in the Personal Injury awards for the category of Claimant Lawyer of the Year 2022. This nomination is well deserved and shows recognition of all the hard work Daniel has done for his clients over the years, many of which have suffered catastrophic, life-changing injuries.
If that wasn’t enough, Express were also mentioned in the Legal 500 and Chamber & Partners, two of the industry’s leading legal directories.
Partner, Jon Andrews featured in Chambers & Partners as a “Next Generation Lawyer”, with our Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence teams also being mentioned.
Principal Partner Richard Lowery was featured in the Legal 500 (ranked in Tier 2), along with our Clinical Negligence Department headed by Carlos Lopez.
The acquisition of Michael W Halsall has come at an exciting time for Express Solicitors, and we are looking forward to welcoming and incorporating our new colleagues from the Newton-Le-Willow office into our departments and learning from their many years of collective experience.