[B]urnetts has doubled its floorspace in West Cumbria to cope with a quadrupling in demand.
The firm moved to its existing office on Cockermouth’s Lakeland Business Park in September 2013 from Westlakes Science Park. Originally, it had been planned that the office would be the full-time home to Head of West Cumbria Tracy Stainton and medical negligence solicitor Lynne Hall with lawyers from other teams working from Cockermouth as needed by clients.
However, the offices were soon full to capacity as caseloads from West Cumbrian businesses and individuals quadrupled. When the unit opposite the existing offices became available, Tracy was keen to secure it for Burnetts.
She said, “The move to Cockermouth in 2013 has been a huge success – the only factor inhibiting greater growth has been space. Luckily we have very good neighbours who have kindly shared their meeting rooms and office space, but we really needed permanent homes for new lawyers to join the West Cumbria team full-time.”
The latest expansion has allowed Burnetts to recruit into both its family and residential conveyancing teams: Vikki Porthouse joined the firm to cope with the expanding demand for specialist family law advice; while in residential conveyancing Kathryn Hill has expanded her team to four with the introduction of Rachael Holliday and Diane Watson who has recently arrived from Waugh and Musgrave. The new offices have also given specialist lawyers from the commercial property a permanent home in West Cumbria: Sue Scott is now based in Cockermouth.
Explaining Burnetts’ West Cumbrian success Tracy said, “Lakeland Business Park has been a great, central location from which to provide our services to people across West Cumbria. Burnetts has nationally recognised expertise that you can’t find anywhere else locally – our focus has been on giving local people and businesses access to those specialisms, whilst ensuring that client care is really excellent. We’re not finished yet though – I can see there are still great opportunities for commercial legal services and I’d like to grow the team even more to support that demand.”
To promote its specialist expertise, Burnetts is running a programme of free legal Saturday surgeries, the next of which is on 29th April with a focus on wills, probate and trusts. Burnetts is also presenting a series of employment and HR seminars at Energus, including Managing Sickness Absence on 12th July. Further information on surgeries and seminars can be found at www.burnetts.co.uk/events.
To contact Burnetts’ West Cumbria team, call 01900 510366, email Tracy Stainton on ts@burnetts.co.uk or visit www.burnetts.co.uk/WestCumbria.
