Cobbetts LLP was a full service British corporate

law firm A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to r ...

, with offices in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

. Its main areas of work were dispute resolution, real estate, corporate and employment law. It had particular expertise in acting for mining companies looking to float on AIM. Cobbetts had total revenues of £45.4 million in 2011/12, the 62nd-largest of any UK-based law firm in that financial year. Cobbetts entered administration in January 2013 and in February the bulk of its assets were acquired by rival Manchester-based law firm

DWF LLP DWF is a global legal business, headquartered in Manchester, England, with 31 offices across the world. In March 2019, DWF was listed on the London Stock Exchange. With a £366m valuation and offer size of £95m, DWF became the UK's largest list ...

History

Cobbetts was founded in Manchester during the first half of the nineteenth century as Cobbett, Wheeler and Cobbett by the sons of

William Cobbett William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, journalist, politician, and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey. He was one of an agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish "rotten boroughs", restrain foreign ...

, the journalist and polemicist. It became Cobbett Leak Almond after the acquisition of Leak Almond and Parkinson in 1987. The firm shortened its name to simply 'Cobbetts' in 1996. Further mergers with

Read Hind Stewart Cobbetts LLP was a full service British corporate law firm, with offices in Birmingham, Leeds, London and Manchester. Its main areas of work were dispute resolution, real estate, corporate and employment law. It had particular expertise in actin ...

of Leeds and Lee Crowder of Birmingham followed in 2002 and 2004 respectively. The London office was opened in 2004 to service corporate clients acquired through niche Manchester firm Fox Brooks Marshall in 2003. On 30 January 2013 it was announced that Cobbetts would be entering administration, having filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators on 28 January 2013, and was now up for sale. On 31 January 2013 it was announced that the Manchester-based law firm DWF had agreed to acquire the bulk of Cobbetts' assets in a "pre-pack" transaction. The acquisition was completed on 7 February 2013. Cobbetts' finance litigation practice and debt recovery team Incasso did not form part of the acquisition, with the former moving to Leeds-based firm Walker Morris and the latter being acquired by the Redditch-based debt recovery firm HL Legal.

References

{{Legal services in the United Kingdom Law firms of the United Kingdom Law firms established in the 19th century 19th-century establishments in the United Kingdom Defunct law firms of the United Kingdom Law firms disestablished in 2013 2013 disestablishments in the United Kingdom