Gordons achieves complete success in being appointed to new Morrisons legal panels

Yorkshire law firm Gordons is celebrating after being appointed to all the legal panels for which it applied by Morrisons, the UK’s fourth-largest supermarket chain.

Gordons has acted as principal legal adviser to Morrisons for over 50 years and the panel appointments present the two organisations with the opportunity to build on this outstandingly lengthy relationship.

This is the first time Morrisons has operated legal panels. Forty firms were long-listed with 22 making the shortlists, only 12 of which had worked for the supermarket before.

Gordons’ new appointments include all the major areas on which the firm had advised Morrisons previously, such as property, corporate/mergers and acquisitions, commercial contracts, employment, personal injury and litigation. A bonus from the process was the firm being appointed to handle the supermarket’s pension work, following its recruitment of Terry Saeedi, a leading expert in this field, and her team, from rival practice Eversheds earlier in 2013.

John Holden, senior partner at Gordons, said: “The Morrisons review process was challenging and lengthy, requiring both written submissions and face-to-face presentations. We’re delighted at the way our key teams worked together in our response to this opportunity, the quality of their input and, of course, ultimately, our appointment to the various panels.”

“Taking nothing for granted, we believe we can now continue to prove ourselves and hope to further develop this relationship, which we value so highly, over the coming months and years.”