It is a legal market with more than 400 firms, 4,000 partners, 9,000 law students and 20,000 support staff. It may sound big enough to support a small country already, but Manchester's growing appetite for legal services shows few signs of slowing down.

The names the city is attracting have got progressively bigger over recent years too, with entrants split across two groups. An influx of firms using the city as a cheap hub for support services has seen Manchester become more than just a competitive regional legal market.

New entrants in this camp include Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP), which announced a new low-cost 'legal process delivery centre' last March, Latham & Watkins, which set out plans for a small support arm in January, and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, which has its much-anticipated Manchester launch coming up by the end of the year.