In early 2024 Hill Dickinson opened an office in Birmingham, its first in the Midlands. The Brief speaks to corporate partner and head of Birmingham office, Nick Dawson, about the firm’s plans for the office, what he looks for in new colleagues, and the role a seminal 1990s TV series played in his choice of career.

In February 2024 Hill Dickinson, the international commercial law firm, opened its first office in Birmingham. This location, headed by corporate partner Nick Dawson, currently focuses on corporate, real estate, and real estate disputes and commercial dispute resolution, with plans to provide a full-service commercial offering within five years.

With existing UK offices in Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, the City of London and the West End (as well as overseas operations in Hong Kong, Greece, Cyprus, Monaco and Singapore), Birmingham was, Dawson says, the obvious next step.

“Birmingham provides a natural geographical bridge between London, which is growing very rapidly for us, and our offices in the North of England,” he explains.

The firm had been growing at pace within the corporate and commercial areas – what we call our Business Services Group – and so Birmingham was an obvious location, and it fills what was a geographical gap.

This (corporate) life

Dawson points to two things that, as a student in the 1990s, attracted him to the law. Firstly, he says, there were “academic” factors: “It was about being involved in a career that was exciting and varied.

“When you study law you don’t know what area you’re going to specialise in eventually so you’re going into it with quite an open mind. From transactional fields like corporate to contentious practice areas, there are a wide variety of career options available as a lawyer, and I think that’s pretty exciting.”

There was also another factor, unique to the era but likely to strike a chord with any professionals who came of age in the UK during the last decade of the twentieth century.

“This was the time when the TV series This Life was being screened. It was such ground-breaking drama, showing the lives of young junior lawyers in London. It looked really exciting, and a fantastic place to be, and I think it actually encouraged a lot of people to look into a career in the law.”

Although inspired by the exploits of This Life’s London twentysomethings, Dawson studied at the University of Birmingham and has worked in the West Midlands for all of his career, initially training at Eversheds in Birmingham before moving to DLA Piper on qualification in 2003.

DLA provided, he says, excellent experience working primarily with institutional clients. After two years, though, he moved to Cobbetts, enticed by the prospect of advising a client base of owner-managed and fast-growing businesses.

Working with entrepreneurial clients represents one of the big attractions of corporate law for Dawson. “To be able to add real value to your clients you need to understand the business environment in which they operate,” he says.

You are dealing with such a variety of different people and types of businesses that no two jobs are ever the same. You are interacting with such a broad cross-section of different people that you almost have to be like a chameleon to be able to translate your advice so it’s understood by, and works for, your audience.

An opportunity you can’t turn down

Dawson spent ten years at Cobbetts before that firm was acquired by DWF. Then, in 2014, he joined Irwin Mitchell’s Birmingham office to set up a corporate team from scratch.

“I was there for ten years. I grew the team very successfully and it was punching well above its weight in M&A and private equity work,” he says.

And then, he continues, “The opportunity arose for a small group of colleagues from corporate, real estate and real estate disputes to open Hill Dickinson’s Birmingham office. That was the kind of opportunity that you just can’t turn down. 

As colleagues, we had known each other for a long time and got on well - if we had turned down the opportunity to open up the Birmingham office of a global commercial law firm we would probably have spent the rest of our careers kicking ourselves.

So, one year ago, Dawson, along with three other partners from Irwin Mitchell, opened Hill Dickinson’s Birmingham office. They were, he says, “treated very fairly” by Irwin Mitchell, and the partners’ teams were able to follow them. 

The Birmingham market, he continues, is tight-knit and “very supportive”.

“We have been really humbled by the level of support and good wishes we have had from competitors,” he says. “People want us to do well in Birmingham, notwithstanding that we are technically in competition.

There is a level of support here that I’m not sure exists in other cities. We have received an enormous amount of support from other firms who have said they are really pleased that Hill Dickinson is here as a brand and they want us to do well.

“They obviously see that increasing the amount of high-quality legal advice in the region is good for everybody.”

Immediate bench strength

The office now has a headcount of twenty. “Often when firms open in new cities, they do so with a small number of hires, but we were able to offer Hill Dickinson some immediate bench strength in corporate, real estate and real estate disputes,” he says. “We’re delighted to already have been joined by a number of new colleagues from outside of the initial team, in particular in real estate and commercial dispute resolution.”

As well as relying on their own resources, the teams also collaborate with colleagues across Hill Dickinson’s various offices, Dawson explains.

“One of the most important things from my perspective was that, while never losing their own identity, the teams should be absolutely focused on the fact they are assimilating into a bigger firm.

“The real estate disputes practice work as a national team anyway. Corporate, although we predominantly work within our respective regions, is a national team and there is a high degree of collaboration across the firm to resource work with the right people at the right level, and with the right skill set.

“Collaboration across offices is also important for junior staff who have built strong personal brands at their previous firms and need to translate that into the firm they have joined.”

Ambitious, hungry candidates

The goal for Hill Dickinson’s Birmingham office is to provide a full-service commercial offering within five years, with a view to becoming “a leading mid-market practice in the Midlands.”

This means the office is recruiting, although, Dawson points out, “We’ve got plenty of time on our side so it’s about getting the right colleagues who understand the opportunity and can also bring growth opportunities with them. It’s not about bums on seats to fill an office, our mantra is very much ‘sustainable profitable growth’”

When considering candidates, he says, the Birmingham office is looking for people who are commercially astute and can provide pragmatic, robust commercial advice to clients. They also need to have a growth mindset.

“We are looking for people who want to help us take market share,” he says. “That’s the fun part. At larger firms you have to work very, very hard to retain existing clients, but when you’re at a firm that is growing, like Hill Dickinson, it’s about taking market share.

“It’s really exciting because it’s a different proposition but it’s not one that suits everybody. People who join us aren’t just going to be sitting here being delivered work.

“There’s a lot of work to do to go out and win that new business.

“The best way to do that is to do a good job. We always say that the best business development you can do is to do a fantastic job for the clients you act for.”

But people who join us here have to be ambitious and hungry, and enjoy winning market share. Sometimes that takes a different type of lawyer.

In terms of roles, the office is recruiting at all levels, and open to opportunities as they arise.

Dawson says, “If there is a strong commercial business case then nothing is off-limits, essentially, which is really exciting.

“We are recruiting at junior levels to increase the bench strength of the teams we already have and we are also looking at partner hires, not only in the areas we already have but also in the other areas we will need to create a full-service offer. Nothing is off the cards.”

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