Celebrating 30 Years in Halifax

Yorkshire’s Legal People, Chadwick Lawrence, are this year celebrating 30 years in Halifax.

On 24^th January, the team based at Somerset House on Rawson Street in Halifax invited clients and contacts from across the Calderdale region for an evening of celebration and networking. Steve Duncan, CEO of the Community Foundation, thanked the firm for its support to the Foundation and other organisations in Calderdale.

The firm has engaged with the Calderdale community for many years, with Partner Nicholas Worsnop acting as director and trustee of Square Chapel in Halifax, in addition to being director of Halifax 900 trust at Halifax Minster. Steven Bonfield, Partner and solicitor at Chadwick Lawrence was also recently appointed Company Secretary at Halifax RLFC.

Chadwick Lawrence opened its first office at 23a Bull Close Lane, Halifax in 1988. At the time the firm was very much based in the Dewsbury and Wakefield areas of West Yorkshire but, mainly through the initiative of the senior partner at the time, Stephen Oakes, saw potential to expand the firm into Calderdale.

Within a couple of years the office expanded into 23b Bull Close Lane, and a few years later into number 23 taking over the whole building.

Senior partner, Paul Campbell, is the only remaining partner of the firm who was a party to the decision to move to Halifax. Cath Milnes is the longest serving employee who has worked in Halifax office, starting her working life as an office assistant in 1989, before becoming PA to the managing partner. Cath since moved to Huddersfield in 1998 when the firm opened its Huddersfield office and is now in the firm’s HR department.

Partner Nicholas Worsnop joined the firm’s Halifax office as a trainee (or “articled clerk”) four years later in 1992 and has remained ever since.

In 2010, the partners sold Bull Close Lane and moved to the beautiful and newly renovated Somerset House.

Over the 30 years, as well as providing legal advice to thousands of clients across Calderdale, the firm has provided pro bono support to many local organisations, including Community Foundation for Calderdale, Square Chapel Centre for the Arts, Halifax Minster, Action Halifax, Marketing Halifax, Northern Broadsides as well as others.

“We’re very proud to say that we have been operating in Halifax for over 30 years,” commented Nicholas Worsnop, Partner at Chadwick Lawrence and secretary of the Community Foundation for Calderdale, “As a firm, we have a very strong relationship with both the business community of Calderdale and also understand the personal interests of the community as a whole.

“A number of our staff members have been part of the firm as long as we have been operating in Halifax, which highlights exactly why this move was right for the business at the time and continues to this very day.”