The Manchester office of Knights is a "positive place to be" as it looks set to take advantage of a strong pipeline of opportunities heading into 2020.
Based at Two St Peter's Square after agreeing a deal to relocate in 2019, the team has enjoyed a "significant period of investment" in a bid to build its presence in the region.
This included buying Turner Parkinson in May 2018, which added 44 fee earners to the group and allowed it to begin 2019 with "great momentum".
James Sheridan, Manchester office partner at Knights, told Insider: "Our move into a new, modern office in the heart of the city has supported our ambitious growth and recruitments plans through the year, helping us to build a market-leading position.
"We have added several high calibre individuals and teams, bringing our total office headcount to 90.
"With many of these new additions joining in the last couple of months we look forward to our new joiners hitting the ground running at the turn of the year, putting us firmly on track to achieve our ambitions for the North West and as a leading player in the mid-market legal services sector."
Sheridan noted that "uncertainty" had been the key rhetoric across the UK business environment in 2019 but added that it had been "less of the case in our key markets".
"Despite perceptions of a difficult business environment, we continue to see a strong flow of work in the mid-market space and the key regions outside of London in which we operate," he said. "The key challenge for us now is to manage this growth but this is something we have successfully navigated since corporatisation in 2012 and we have been highly focussed on getting this right – from carefully selecting and integrating acquisitions to attracting high calibre people that all want to be part of Knights and its strong culture.
"Overall, I have great confidence in the capabilities of our team and am very pleased with the resilience we have shown through the period."
The firm has enjoyed a busy year in the region. In November, it was ranked as the North West's most active legal advisor in Experian Market IQ's M&A Review for the nine months to 30 September.
"Given we had not placed in the top rankings in Experian's M&A reviews of previous years, the result is a huge testament to our growth in the past few years – both organic and via acquisition – which has been boosted by our successful stock market listing in June 2018," said Sheridan.
"We will be working hard to secure our top rank in the North West while continuing to climb the other UK league tables."
Looking ahead, he added: "Our Manchester office is a positive place to be right now. Manchester is a great place to do business, it is growing quickly and the benefits of this growth are being felt across the wider North West.
"As a result, we continue to see a strong pipeline of opportunities to work with both new and existing clients in our key mid-market space and look forward to hitting the ground running in 2020 based on the strong platform we have built in 2019."
Earlier this week, the firm revealed that half-year revenue and pre-tax profits had both jumped.
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