Dickinson Dees

Dickinson Dees
Headquarters	Newcastle upon Tyne
No. of offices	5 in UK and 1 affiliated office in Brussels
No. of attorneys	261
No. of employees	600
Key people	John Marshall (Senior Partner) Jonathan Blair (Managing Partner)
Revenue	£48.8m million
Date founded	1975
Company type	Limited Liability Partnership
Website
dickinson-dees.com

Dickinson Dees LLP is a UK top 59 law firm headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne.^[1]

The practice employs around 600 staff and has 60 partners ^[2] across its offices in Newcastle, Tees Valley, York and meeting rooms in London.

The firm is organised into four main departments: corporate & commercial, litigation, property and private client, and through a network of cross-departmental groups provides co-ordinated advice on a broad range of issues for particular business and operational sectors.

In 2008, Dickinson Dees advised on deals worth over £8bn across the country and from all sectors – public, corporate, property, charity and private individuals.

The firm has IIP and Lexcel accreditation.

History of Dickinson Dees

Dickinson Dees was established in 1975 after a series of mergers between smaller partnerships had taken place, mainly in the years after the second world war. At least one of these firms, Griffith & Co, was able to trace its roots back to 1786, while another firm, Dees & Thompson, was certainly active at the very beginning of the nineteenth century, and possibly earlier. W.G. Armstrong, later to be created Baron Armstrong of Cragside in recognition of his world famous engineering skills, was a partner in this latter firm from 1835 - 47. Five generations of Dickinsons have been connected with the firm, the first being a Robert Dickinson who, having been admitted as a solicitor in 1859, subsequently practised in the now demolished Royal Arcade.

By the turn of the century Dickinson Miller & Turnbull was one of the largest in the region and in 1912 the firm moved into Cross House in Westgate Road. Dickinson Miller & Turnbull and another highly regarded firm, Dees & Thompson, between them acted for a very high percentage of the landed estate owners, colliery companies and local industrial enterprises in the north. Both firms saw continued expansion through the first half of the 20th century as landowning families were compensated for mineral rights by the government under coal nationalisation. Both firms acted for these landowners in connection with the transfer of their mineral interests to the National Coal Board (and its predecessor the Coal Commission) and subsequently in the investment of the proceeds. Today Dickinson Dees, formed from a merger between these two firms, still holds the title deeds to over one third of the land in the North of England in safe custody and the firm’s Private Client Department still acts for successive generations of the families involved in that process.

The merger between Newcastle firms - Dickinson Miller & Turnbull and Dees & Thompson Griffith & Co - took place in 1975. These two firms represented Leech and Bellway respectively, two of the largest regionally based building firms. The new firm, Dickinson Dees, saw further expansion arising from the extensive residential development work handled on behalf of these two clients in subsequent years.

During the late eighties and nineties the firm’s business steadily expanded and the number of staff likewise increased. By 1997 the firm had overflowed from Cross House into three other nearby buildings and a move to new premises was being planned. In March 1998 the firm moved to a new building at St. Ann’s Wharf on the redeveloped Newcastle Quayside. This brought the whole firm together again under one roof in premises with state-of-the-art technology. The firm has made progress since the turn of the century but encountered difficulties during the recession making 83 redundancies in 2009. ^[3].

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

To access information about the firm’s CSR policy, click here ^[4]

Dickinson Dees is one of the founding members of the Legal Sector Alliance (LSA) which is a movement of law firms and organisations within the sector committed to taking action on climate change.

References

1. ^ "Law-firms". Legalweek. http://www.thelawyer.com/uk200-2011-contents/1009501.article. Retrieved 2010-08-11. 
2. ^ "Our_People". DickinsonDees. http://www.dickinson-dees.com/About_Us/Our_People.asp. Retrieved 2010-08-11. 
3. ^ "> The Lawyer Firm Appraisal". The Lawyer. http://www.thelawyer.com/directory/d/Dickinson-Dees/. Retrieved 2010-08-11. 
4. ^ "> Corporate Social Responsibility". Dickinson Dees. http://www.dickinson-dees.com/About_Us/Corporate_Social_Responsibility.asp. Retrieved 2010-08-11.