Nottingham Law School (NLS) has named the management team it hopes will lead its new venture in London to success, as it attempts to make up ground on rival legal education providers.

Nottingham Trent University senior pro-vice chancellor, professor Peter Jones, has been appointed to lead the overall venture, which is being carried out with US education provider Kaplan. NLS's managing director Phil Knott will be in charge of the day-to-day running of the school.

The pair will be focusing on signing up law firms and students to the LPC and GDL courses that are due to start in London in September 2007.

NLS announced its intention to open in London through a partnership with Kaplan at the end of June, and the final contract was signed this week – at the same time that Jones and Knott were appointed to lead the London school.

The new school will be based in Angel and will offer bespoke courses for students of particular firms, with 50% of the teaching provided by NLS staff and the remainder by Kaplan.

Jones, who was chief executive and dean of NLS in the late 1990s, worked on the development of the City LPC in 2001 with Knott. He has also been responsible for promoting Nottingham Trent's relationship with Kaplan over the last few years which led to the joint project, Nottingham Trent International College, opening in 2005.

The move comes as the school attempts to close the gap on rivals BPP Law School and the College of Law, which have secured contracts with the majority of the City's top firms since the eight-firm City LPC consortium split in 2004.

With most of the top 20 firms having already agreed exclusive deals with BPP and College of Law, NLS is expected to aggressively step up its campaign to secure its first contract over the remainder of the summer.