Twenty delegates from Barcelona arrived in Leeds yesterday to learn more about doing business in the city region, and are keen to develop relationships with the finest of the region’s legal professionals.
The two-day visit organised by Leeds Legal – an alliance of the city’s law firms – follows a number of visits from Leeds lawyers and city leaders to Barcelona over the last 18 months. Previous visits include the commercial and cultural exchange event ‘Leeds in Barcelona’ in March this year, where Leeds Legal signed a co-operation agreement with the Barcelona Bar Association to demonstrate the commitment between the two cities to develop closer working relationships.
As part of a packed agenda, organised in conjunction with UK Trade & Investment, the Catalonian delegates will meet many of the city’s top law firms to enable exchange of best practice and to develop new relationships with Leeds lawyers and further developer collaborative links following previous delegation to Barcelona.
Last night the delegates were officially welcomed by Leeds Legal’s chairman Alan M. Baker and Councillor Bernard Atha at a dinner held at the Royal Armouries. After a very full day of seminars and face-to-face meetings today, (Friday 19th) the visitors – many of whom have not been to the city before – will be treated to a walking tour, conducted by the Leeds Civic Trust, before enjoying a night at Whitelocks, a typical Leeds pub.
Alan M. Baker, Leeds Legal chairman, said: “We were delighted to welcome the Catalonian delegation to Leeds. We’ve made excellent progress communicating the benefits of Leeds as a legal centre to Spanish firms on our previous visits, and now it’s our turn to showcase the expertise the city’s law firms deliver.
“It’s a great chance to build a network of business support for all parties involved, to learn more about collaborative working and explore new potential business opportunities, whilst building on existing business links. We have pioneered many of these types of international exchanges and know the formula works as we are starting to see the city’s law firms developing commercial opportunities as a direct result of previous visits.”
Santiago Nadal, principle of the Barcelona law firm SNAbogados said, “There are many similarities between Leeds and Barcelona – both are recognised as major business hubs for their respective countries and the two cities can certainly learn from each other.We are committed to the two cities building a long term relationship and building key collaborative business links with significant legal professionals in Leeds to achieve successful business exchange in the future.”
