Collingwood Legal celebrates 15th anniversary in award-winning year
An award-winning North East lawyer is celebrating 15 years at the helm of his own practice.
Paul McGowan established Collingwood Legal in 2010 as a relationship-based practice which specialises in employment law and has since grown the firm to have a ten-strong team.
Having worked exclusively in employment law for almost three decades, Paul was named as employment lawyer of the year earlier this year by legal industry ‘bible’ The Legal 500 at their 2025 Northern Powerhouse Awards.
Collingwood Legal works with a number of well-known public and private sector organisations both within and outside the North East, and has particular expertise in the education, health and manufacturing.
Founded in Corbridge, it moved into offices on the Newcastle Business Park in 2011 before expanding into the premises next door two years later to accommodate its growing team.
The firm sits in the top tier of The Legal 500’s employment law rankings, with partner Jane Sinnamon, who joined the firm as a newly qualified solicitor in the year it was founded, and senior associate Charlotte McBride both identified by the publication as leading practitioners in their field.
Collingwood Legal offers the full range of employment law services, including advice and training for employers on how to deal with developing workplace issues, such as the Employment Rights Bill that is currently making its way through Parliament.
The firm strengthened its senior team earlier this year with the promotion of solicitor Helen Scott to a partnership position.
Paul McGowan says: “Collingwood Legal was founded on the principles of building long-term relationships with clients and providing them with high quality services which help make their operations more efficient and effective. This ethos still forms the basis of our business today.
“We’ve built an extremely capable and talented team over the last 15 years which takes a personal, strong and focused approach to client relationships, with the length of many of these relationships showing the positive impact they have on clients’ operations.
“The demand for support around employment law and human resources issues is always present, with the ongoing evolution of rules and regulations and the government’s plans to introduce many more employment rights in the coming years making it more important than ever for businesses to have access to expert guidance that will help them manage their workplace responsibilities.
“Our aim is to continue growing in a controlled manner that maintains our client quality and service standards, and we believe there are many commercial opportunities out there that will enable us to do so.”