Redkite Solicitors, one of the largest legal firms in Wales and the south-west, has agreed to acquire CLA Trust & Legacy Planning, a Cardiff-based specialist firm of private client lawyers established by solicitor Helen Downes. The acquisition completed on 1 September 2026 and marks Redkite’s second acquisition this year, following the addition of Penarth-based Alan Simons & Co in May.
The acquisition comes at the end of a strong year for Redkite. The firm reported turnover of £20.4 million and 18% growth in its most recent financial year, securing a place in the UK Top 200 law firms. Redkite has doubled in size over the past five years and quadrupled over the past ten, and now operates 19 offices with around 300 staff. In May 2026, the firm appointed two new equity partners, and it was recently recognised at the Legal News Wales 2026 Awards, where Chief Executive Neil Walker won the Leadership Award and the firm won Wellbeing Strategy of the Year. Redkite is also ranked in the 2026 Chambers UK and Legal 500 guides.
The acquisition of CLA Trust & Legacy Planning gives Redkite specialist, in-house expertise in trusts, estates and succession planning, allowing the firm to offer a genuinely full range of wealth management services rather than referring specialist trust and legacy work elsewhere.
As part of the deal, CLA Trust & Legacy Planning founder Helen Downes joins Redkite as Partner and Head of Private Wealth and Succession Planning, with her assistant Sally Lewis joining as Legal Adviser. The pair bring an established client base and a track record in a specialism that complements Redkite’s existing private client, litigation, contentious probate and employment teams. For CLA Trust & Legacy Planning’s existing clients, the move provides access to Redkite’s broader range of legal specialisms.
Helen Downes qualified as a solicitor in 1997. She built her career in Cardiff, latterly as a partner and Head of Private Client at one of the city’s biggest firms, before founding CLA Trust & Legacy Planning in November 2016. In 2000 she became the first solicitor in South Wales to hold the STEP (Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) diploma, and she remains a TEP and an active STEP committee member, alongside ATT qualifications in personal taxation and inheritance tax, trusts and estates. She has built a reputation over more than 25 years for handling complex tax, trust and estate planning work for high-net-worth clients.
Neil Walker, Chief Executive of Redkite, said:
“This has been a strong year for Redkite, and this acquisition is a natural next step in that growth. Trust and legacy planning is an area where we’ve increasingly seen demand from our private clients, and until now we’ve had to send that work elsewhere. Bringing Helen and Sally in-house means we can offer that expertise directly, and we are delighted to welcome them both to the Redkite family.”
Helen Downes said:
“Since I set up CLA Trust & Legacy Planning in 2016, the whole point has been that trust and legacy planning should feel personal, not transactional. Joining Redkite is the next natural step in fulfilling that mission. I’ve long admired the way Redkite has grown while staying rooted in the communities it serves, and being part of that, with the resources and reach it brings, is genuinely exciting.”
