Northridge Law LLP (Northridge) recently became one of the first Band 1 specialist law firms in the UK to secure third party funding, announcing a strategic minority investment from US headquartered Cordillera Investment Partners on 31st March 2026.
In less than a decade, the firm’s five founding partners of Jonathan Ellis, Ian Lynam, Jon Walters, James Eighteen, Paul Shapiro and their wider team have created an industry leader. Northridge boasts the largest sports law practice in Europe, a market-leading position demonstrated by its Tier 1 ranking in both Legal 500 and Chambers legal directories and is a previous winner of M&A Team of the Year at the British Legal Awards. The firm’s uniquely differentiated offering has resulted in Northridge delivering compound annual growth of 16% over the past five years.
Kindleworth helped launch Northridge in 2017, becoming the firm’s operational partner thereafter. This latest milestone in Northridge’s history offers an opportunity to look back on the firm’s journey to date.
Launching a firm of their design
Kindleworth’s senior team spent substantial time with Northridge’s founder partners in 2017, initially helping them to build and stress-test the vision, financial and business plans for their proposed firm.
It was clear from our early conversations that the firm’s founder team had real entrepreneurial spirit and were determined to launch not just a highly regarded specialist firm but were passionate about building one of the pre-eminent legal brands in the global sports marketplace.
Once they had taken the decision to launch Northridge, the founders engaged Kindleworth to oversee the build of their new firm. Kindleworth devised a bespoke project plan outlining the workstreams required to achieve a successful launch and met with the founder team weekly to discuss progress against their objectives. The Kindleworth team directly delivered the majority of the required programme, including:
- Planning – Preparation of the new firm’s full business and financial plans, including three-year budget and cashflow forecasts
- Structure & Tax – Advised on structure and set up of entity, completing the new firm’s required entity/tax registrations and supported the drafting of all constitutional documents
- Regulation & Compliance – secured Professional Indemnity Insurance (via a broker) and SRA authorisation, drafted Terms of Engagement/Business and legal notices and created Risk & Compliance processes for Northridge
- Finance – Selecting and implementing a Practice Management System for the firm, establishing a banking relationship for Northridge including for the firm’s client account needs and creating the new firm’s financial reporting, processes, controls and systems
- HR – Supported the founder team to make decisions regarding compensation structures for the launch team, prepared initial contractual arrangements and managed the employee onboarding processes, explored and implemented the firm’s employee benefits solutions and prepared Northridge’s HR manual, policies and templates
- IT & Telecoms – Created the new firm’s IT roadmap, including budget, and organised for the setup of required primary software, purchase and setup of hardware, laptops, telephony and mobile services and project managed the required data transfer from the launch team’s existing firm
- Office – Oversaw the project to secure office space for the firm’s launch team.
Of Kindleworth’s role in helping to launch the firm, Northridge founder partner Ian commented, “It is not hyperbole to say that we literally could not have done it without Kindleworth. Their team worked shoulder to shoulder with us to get Northridge into the market and we were incredibly appreciative of their counsel and support at what was an equally exciting and demanding time!”
Building a pre-eminent brand
From the outset Northridge was positioned very thoughtfully with the founders engaging a branding agency to make sure that their expertise was clearly articulated through their branding and visual identity.
As Ian Lynam reflected “Our focus has always been on building the ideal firm to advise the sports industry when the stakes are highest. Our firm’s success stems from our focus – providing the best advice on the most complex matters in sport requires the kind of specialist expertise which can only be built by working in the industry every day.”
Following Northridge’s launch, Kindleworth has continued to operationally support the firm enabling its partners and fee earners to focus on their clients.
Kindleworth acts as Northridge’s fractional Head of HR, Head of Risk and Head of IT whilst being responsible for delivering the firm’s full HR, Risk & Compliance and IT functions. Kindleworth’s senior team has also supported the firm with its strategic operational and growth agendas.
The team at Kindleworth has also always acted as Northridge’s fractional CFO, delivering the firm’s full finance function. As part of its ongoing support to the firm, Kindleworth produced the financial forecasting for Northridge’s recent investment from Cordillera Investment Partners and managed the process of obtaining SRA approval for the Alternative Business Structure that was required as part of the deal. Kindleworth’s deep operational experience enabled the due diligence to progress to plan, without issues, working in partnership with Northridge’s corporate advisers, KPMG.
Callum Shields, M&A director at KPMG said “It was great to work alongside Kindleworth, during the transaction. The due diligence process went smoothly and Kindleworth demonstrated their deep legal sector knowledge and made key contributions throughout. We worked well together in partnership and look forward to further opportunities to do so again!”
The future
Adding the backing of strategic third-party funding to their list of accolades, Northridge is a huge success by any measure.
Jonathan Ellis, founder partner at Northridge commented on the recent deal with Cordillera Investment Partners, “As the sports industry continues to grow and evolve, we see a significant opportunity to be even more ambitious. This investment will enable us to accelerate our strategic priorities, broadening and deepening our capabilities, expanding internationally, and continuing to invest in exceptional talent and innovative technology.”
Kindleworth’s co-founder and CEO, James Hacking, commented, “It gives the Kindleworth team immense pride to support founders as they launch and then build their firms successfully and working with the Northridge team has been a real privilege. We are looking forward to continuing to support the firm as they expand even further during this exciting next chapter.”
Considering launching a specialist firm? Contact Sam Nicholls in complete confidence for your ‘what if’ conversation.
