PEARSON Solicitors and Financial Advisers have reported continued growth in the £4.1 million business and on top of that have secured the Law Society’s legal practice quality mark, Lexcel for the 17th consecutive year.

Only 10 per cent of UK firms pass the high standards of the Lexcel audit so staff at the firm are celebrating this week.

In her in depth analysis of the firm, Anne Milne, of Lexcel, said: “Good management, supervision, well established training and a sense of wanting to continuously improve were all things which came out high in the Pearson review.

“Lexcel is a Law Society standard with high expectations and so few firms achieve it, but Pearson are consistently well managed and fee earners really look after their clients.”

Lexcel sets the required standard in seven different areas: structure and strategy, financial management, information management, people management, risk management, client care, file and case management.

Ms Milne also said team work seemed to be the way forward for continued success.

She went on: “Pearson is a friendly firm which has been around a long time, but at the same time embraces modern values and staff seem to have a great work life balance.”

Highest growth areas of the business currently are in private client, financial services, corporate and litigation departments.

Managing partner Joanne Ormston said: “It has been an amazing year for us, we have consolidated the success of the previous year and made investments in the firm, but at the same time have been able to grow certain areas such as commercial property and private client.

“Recruitment of senior solicitors, as well as younger staff forging careers locally is at the backbone of our planning process moving forward and we now have 73 staff working with us.

"We are a real alternative to Manchester law firms and have a depth of experienced solicitors to tackle high end national work, but at the same time enjoy looking after the second and third generations of our locally based clients."

She added: “More than 75 per cent of our business is from recommendation and repeat business so clients obviously like the service we offer and gaining Lexcel for so many years really does cement our ethos of high quality legal work with a friendly attitude.”