Civil litigation specialist CEL is expanding its city centre office space at 20 Chapel Street and intends to almost treble its workforce. Tony McDonough reports

Liverpool law firm CEL Solicitors says it aims to create 120 new jobs in the city centre – almost trebling its existing workforce.

CEL, which has been in business for four years, is expanding its space at 20 Chapel Street in the heart of Liverpool’s commercial district. It already occupies 7,830 sq ft on the 12th floor of the building where it employs 65 staff.

Now it has agreed to take a extra 7,168 sq ft space on the sixth floor. This offer space to hire another 120 people over the next two years. CEL director and owner, Jessica Hampson, said: “Since launching four years ago, we’ve gone from strength to strength, growing from just one service line to seven and massively increasing our headcount.

“We absolutely could not have achieved without heavy investment in technology and a strong ‘people before profits’ ethos. To be able to mark our anniversary on International Women’s Day is particularly poignant for me, as it was of course a major challenge – and risk – setting up a law firm in an already crowded market.

“But, I was a passionate about creating a business that disrupted the industry, putting people before profits and rewarding effort and talent regardless of background, experience or social demographic.”

CEL is a civil litigation specialist and offers expertise cross seven practice areas: housing disrepair; data breach claims; Japanese knotweed claims; financial mis-selling claims, land boundary disputes, fraud prevention claims and business interruption insurance.

Its existing space at 20 Chapel Street boasts three bars, two ‘think swings’, pool table and a 70-seater amphitheatre. Fit-out of the sixth floor space will begin in April and initial plans include design inputs from the team such as a seven metre-long aquarium and further games and chill-out areas similar to the 12th floor.

Ms Hampson added: “We created our office at 20 Chapel Street with our team’s wellbeing at the core – everything here is designed to foster a collaborative, engaging workspace, from the ‘think ‘swings’, bars and Banksy artwork on the walls to the panoramic views over the River Mersey.

“We wanted the office to be somewhere that the team look forward to coming into, so to now be announcing an expansion onto the sixth floor is incredible and will allow us to continue our growth.

“Working with Barclay Eagle Labs, we’re now exploring how we step up our already innovative approach to client handling using technology such as AI – we’ve previously been dubbed as a ‘Scouse Silicon Valley’ for our disruptive approach, which we’ve really embraced and ran with.

“I’m extremely passionate about investing in the right tech to achieve the most efficient and high quality outcomes for clients, helping the business to grow, as well as modernising the legal sector which can often be viewed as ‘traditional and stuffy’.”