Addleshaw Goddard was formed from the merger of Addleshaw Booth & Co and Theodore Goddard in 2003. Addleshaw Booth was Northern and ambitious, with plenty of heft in Manchester and Leeds, especially for corporate, finance and property work. By contrast, Theodore Goddard was a mid-size London firm with a pleasant atmosphere, some interesting media and entertainment work and what now seems the incredibly quaint practice of guaranteeing all trainees jobs on qualification. By the time of the merger it’s fair
Addleshaw Goddard was formed from the merger of Addleshaw Booth & Co and Theodore Goddard in 2003.
Addleshaw Booth was Northern and ambitious, with plenty of heft in Manchester and Leeds, especially for corporate, finance and property work. By contrast, Theodore Goddard was a mid-size London firm with a pleasant atmosphere, some interesting media and entertainment work and what now seems the incredibly quaint practice of guaranteeing all trainees jobs on qualification. By the time of the merger it’s fair to say it was flagging a bit and needed a lift to keep it competitive.
The new Addleshaw Goddard pushed on nicely in the years after the merger under the leadership of Mark Jones, though an adherence to what was dubbed ‘The AG Way’ saw a proliferation of buzzwords and slogans within the firm (‘Three Offices, One Team’/‘Bold and Beautiful’ clients/a ‘From Me to You’ mentality). A more corporate image was cultivated: a family department was offloaded in 2008 and the firm moved to new London premises, Milton Gate.
Post-Jones, however, Addleshaw Goddard lost some of its shine. Although new managing partner Paul Devitt’s strengths as a lawyer were never in question his popularity as a leader was not so clear cut. Numerous sources reported rising tension in the partnership in the post-crash years while some embarrassing internal accounting errors and the exit of longstanding financial director Martin Gaskin compounded the impression of a firm where not everything was well. The firm now has offices in mainland Europe, Asia and the Middle East but there was a sense that that firm’s international strategy was not paying off in spades.
Devitt stood down a year before the end of his tenure, with John Joyce taking over in 2014. He set the goal of taking top of equity over £1m, which he successfully did at the end of 2015/16, three years ahead of target. Joyce also successfully negotiated a deal to take over Gateley’s Scottish arm, HBJ. The HBJ merger went live in May 2017, adding around £22m to Addleshaws’ top line.
Addleshaw Goddard is well known to be in the market for a merger and reports of talks have circulated on and off for years. Nabarro, CMS, Maclay Murray & Spens have all been suitors at one point or another – Nabarro in 2013 (talks never went beyond a preliminary stage), Maclays in 2015 and CMS in 2016 (talks broke down over disagreements over who would lead the firm). The latest set of talks to make the headlines were with US firm Hunton & Williams: conversations began in 2015 but fizzled out after two years of negotiations.
| Managing partner | Senior partner | |
| 1992 | Mark Jones | |
| 1997 | Paul Lee | |
| 2009 | Paul Devitt | |
| 2010 | Monica Burch | |
| 2014 | John Joyce | |
| 2016 | Charles Penney |
TRAINING CONTRACTS
What is the trainee salary at Addleshaw Goddard?
1st year trainee: £40,000 (London); £27,500 (England regions)
2nd year trainee: £43,000 (London); 29,500 (England regions)
Number of trainees: 112
