Browne Jacobson has officially opened its new state of the art head office in the heart of Nottingham.
The firm, which spent 25 years based at Castle Gate and Hounds Gate, has moved into Mowbray House, the award winning 60,000 sq feet Grade A building. The firm’s other offices include Birmingham, London and more recently Manchester.
Over 430 employees, including more than 150 lawyers and 46 partners, will occupy all four floors of the iconic building which is part of the award winning HM Revenue and Customs headquarters complex designed by Sir Michael Hopkins in the 1990s.
The ten year lease agreement was the largest office letting in Nottingham in 2011. Around £5m has been invested in upgrading the premises which also includes a client suite including knowledge centre and media studio for the delivery of webinars and online training, private garden for client entertaining and 50 on-site car parking spaces.
Mowbray House incorporates the latest in unified communications technology to allow the business to communicate more effectively and improve productivity. A number of ‘green’ initiatives have also been incorporated into the new offices in line with the firm’s environmental commitment including a new digital and offsite document management retrieval system.
The opening comes just weeks after the firm posted a 17.3% year-on-year rise in turnover to a record £41.3m for the financial year to April 2012. In the past twelve months the firm’s headcount has also grown by 79 nationally, of which 55 have been recruited in the Nottingham office alone.
Speaking at the new office launch party, which was attended by over 100 of the firm’s clients, managing partner Iain Blatherwick said:
“Our Nottingham operation has grown organically by over one-third in the last three years alone so the time was right to move to a building that better supported our needs and is capable of matching our ambitious growth plans.
“This is a major investment for Browne Jacobson. In these tough economic times it is a mark of our success and confidence in the future growth of the business.
“Mowbray House is the perfect location as the firm’s new head office. Its central location, space and excellent transport links makes it the perfect base to bring all our Nottingham teams under one roof, to help us attract and keep the best legal talent and, most importantly, serve the current and long term needs of our private and public sector clients.
“The building perfectly encapsulates our innovative, forward looking, vibrant and flexible approach whilst being an enjoyable and straight-forward place to work in.”
Mandy Webster, library & information services manager, commented: “The facilities offer a bright, pleasant and flexible working environment with capacity to now host up to 18 people working within the Knowledge Centre in comfort, opening up opportunities for new ways of working.”
With 18 years of loyal service to her name senior reprographics assistant Maggie Rothwell, added: “After 18 years at Castle Gate it is a wonderful, ultra modern environment to work in with excellent new technology for the service reprographics offers.”
Michael Reed, who joined the firm 13 years ago, echoed her sentiments adding “To me it is like a genesis, a new beginning in a brand new office for the general office team.”
