ONE of the area's most well-known legal firms scooped the title of Company of the Year runner-up at this year's awards and then promptly donated their prize money to a local charity.

Keogh Ritson Solicitors, on Chorley New Road is a legal firm with departments dealing in specialised areas of law. These include insurance litigation, commercial law, as well as a private client department handling matters such as probate, wills and domestic conveyancing.

The firm derives from the merger of two established practices in 1968 and is one of the county's leading insurance litigation practices.

At the time of the merger, the firm consisted of three partners and 14 staff. It's now grown considerably since its inception to a practice that today consists of 18 partners and over 210 staff.

An obviously delighted Emma Stafford, marketing manager for the firm, said after receiving the award: ''We are all so delighted. We honestly never believed we would get this prize.

''We certainly hope to continue our expansion. We will give our prizemoney to a local charity.''

The company has grown rapidly from a town practice, with some insurance work, to a well respected player in the insurance litigation market.

Based in Bolton, Keogh Ritson have a comprehensive knowledge of the north west business community and their expertise has attracted many major regional and national clients.

This year, the firm plans to diversify their litigation work and set up individual departments for specialised areas, including professional indemnity work.

Miss Stafford added: ''It has been a wonderful evening and a perfect culmination of a lot of hard work by the team.''

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.