Olliers

Olliers is one of the UK’s leading criminal defence and regulatory law firms, specialising in the defence of individuals, businesses, and other organisations across a broad range of corporate and financial crime, regulatory offences, serious crime and sexual offences. We act in professional discipline matters. We use the same skillset to represent individuals and organisations facing criticism before inquests and public inquires.

We have a particularly strong reputation in the field of ‘crisis management’, frequently receiving instructions during the very early stages of a case, often before an interview has taken place. We understand the stress and anxiety an investigation can cause an individual or a business. We are known for our proactive approach, establishing early dialogue with investigators, keeping publicity and disruption to a minimum whilst looking to bring any investigation to a swift conclusion.

We are ranked as a ‘Top Tier’ criminal defence and firm by the Legal 500 and Chambers Guide 2025. We are the current Manchester Legal Awards Crime Team of the Year, an award we have won seven times.

Our Managing Director, Matthew Claughton is the 2023 Legal 500 Northern Powerhouse Criminal Lawyer of the Year. He is also the only two-time Partner of the Year at the Manchester Legal Awards. Fellow Director, Ruth Peters is a former Solicitor of the Year. Many of our lawyers are leaders in their field.

Team members specialise in specific niche areas law meaning that we can provide specialist representation across the whole spectrum of criminal defence.

Clients can be seen at our Manchester or London offices, at barristers chambers in any major city or on a remote basis via Zoom or any other remote video conferencing platform.

Main Areas of Practice: 

Criminal defence/regulatory practice areas: 

Pre-Charge: During any investigation we will always look to making successful ‘representations against charge’.From the outset we will look at early pre-charge engagement with investigators. We will closely scrutinise whether the ‘Charging Standard’ contained within the 2018 ‘Code for Crown Prosecutors’ is met. Wherever possible we will argue that there is not a ‘realistic prospect of a conviction’or that a prosecution is not in the ‘public interest’and that no further action should be taken against our client.

Fraud and business crime: We handle a wide range of large scale, complex and often high profile fraud cases. Our team is experienced in dealing with cases prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office, HMRC investigations, specialist fraud divisions of the police, and the Financial Conduct Authority.

Main Areas of Practice:

Regulatory offences: The firm’s regulatory team represents clients in the following regulatory areas; trading standards, food safety and hygiene, trade marks, fire safety, copyright and design breaches, health and safety, environmental damage and, transport law.

Serious crime: Olliers’ reputation for committed and rigorous defence work means that we attract an enviable volume of heavyweight criminal work. The serious crime specialists have experience in the full range of criminal cases including gangland murders, multi-handed drugs conspiracies, firearms offences, terrorism allegations, people smuggling and a wide range of cases involving undercover operations. The serious crime team has considerable experience of dealing with prosecutions brought by agencies such as the CPS Complex Crime Unit and the National Crime Agency.

Sexual offences: Matthew Claughton heads the team dealing with serious sexual offences and has had notable success during recent years with a particular emphasis on historic rape and sexual assault allegations. Matthew has developed an enviable reputation in proactively defending sexual allegations whilst at the investigative stage. His team also deals with allegations involving sexual communication, grooming and images.