Despite the impact of the pandemic on businesses across the world, the firm added staff across all teams, including legal advisors, legal administrators, bookkeeping, marketing, human resources and IT.

As part of its growth and expansion plans across the province, JMK also recently opened a new office on Derry’s Culmore Road, a prime location close to the city centre.

Maurece Hutchinson, managing director at JMK Solicitors, said: “One of our core values is a focus on making people our priority, which applies to our clients and our team. As we continue to establish our position in the legal services market, we feel it is important to continue to invest in and expand the expertise in the business across all areas, to ensure we are providing a personal service to each client.

“During the pandemic we continued to look towards the future and to find ways to improve the service to our clients. Something that has not always been easy to achieve with all of the events going on around us. Opening in the north-west is part of our strategic plan to achieve our vision of being the only solicitors that people think of if they need help following an injury or an accident.”

Michelle Murphy, head of operations and HR, added: “It has always been important for us to attract the best people to work at JMK. The unexpected impact of the pandemic created a highly competitive job market, and one of our key differentiators as a business, and how we have been able to add an extra 20 per cent to staff levels, is our four-day working week, which we implemented in January 2020.

“We reduced full-time hours from 37.5 to 30 hours, with no reduction in pay. Achieving work-life balance has never been more important for job seekers, and I am delighted it is something we are able to offer new recruits whilst continuing to maintain our high level of service for clients.”