Tees Law

Tees offers support to clients in all categories, from private individuals and independent businesses through to professional partnerships and national corporations and institutions.

The firm: Tees has a strong reputation for excellence and commitment to providing the highest levels of service to clients from across the region and nationwide. Our approachable lawyers offer an in-depth, responsive and cross-disciplinary service. Tees' philosophy is to take time to get to know clients, their goals and circumstances, so the lawyers can achieve the best possible results for them.

Tees history: Tees has been part of the local community for over a century, supporting our clients from generation to generation. Historically, Tees growth has been driven by strategic mergers. Established in 1913, Tees has grown from a traditional family firm with a strong agricultural bias, into a dynamic full-service practice with six offices across East Anglia and the South East, employing more than 300 staff including our financial services team. In 2016 Tees merged with Limbach Banham Solicitors to create the Royston office. Merging with Irena Spence and Co Solicitors in Cambridge brought significant extra depth to Tees residential team in the city. Wortley Byers, based in Brentwood, Essex, merged with Tees in 2019. Wortley Byers can trace its history back over 50 years to Stamp Wortley, a well-established law firm which merged in 1967 with another firm to become Wortley Byers.

Tees offices: Tees has six offices: Brentwood, Bishop’s Stortford, Cambridge, Chelmsford, Royston and Saffron Walden. Its ultra-modern 20,000sq ft offices in Bishop’s Stortford offer exemplary client facilities. Tees is close to Stansted Airport and the M11 and M25, with fast road and train connections to London, the Midlands, the South East and East Anglia.

Tees growth: With turnover of £26.5m last year, the firm is hoping to increase turnover to £29m in the next financial year. The strategy is to attract the best legal talent in the region and combine that talent with a £1.5m investment in IT that is already making working processes more efficient. This will allow lawyers to spend more time with their clients.

Tees recent awards and accolades:

• Included on The Times Best Law Firm 2023 list
• Highly commended in the Property Team of the Year category for the Cambridgeshire Law Society Legal Excellence Awards 2023
• Finalist in the Technology Team of the Year category for the ‘British Legal Technology Awards 2022’
• Highly commended in the Senior Lawyer of the Year category for the Cambridgeshire Law Society Legal Excellence Awards 2022
• Highly commended in the Injury Litigation Team of the Year category for the Cambridgeshire Law Society Legal Excellence Awards 2022
• Winner of the Excellence in Technology and Innovation Firm Award at the Cambridgeshire Law Society Excellence Awards 2021
• Winner of the Residential Property Team of the Year Award at the Cambridgeshire Law Society Excellence Awards 2021
• Tees were also Highly Commended for Injury Litigation Team of the Year, and Private Client Associate Chris Claxton-Shirley received a Highly Commended as a Rising Star.
• Best Trainer – Medium Regional Firm 2019 at the LawCareers.Net Training & Recruitment Awards recognising the hard work put into making Tees training scheme a success
• Janine Collier, Executive Partner and Co-Head of the Cambridge office, Cambridge District Law Society’s ‘Woman Lawyer of the Year’ Award 2019
• Ashton Hunt, Group Managing Director, Small-Medium Business IoD East Director of the Year Award 2019

Types of work undertaken
Private client: the firm is renowned for its specialist private client team. The team advise on the preparation of wills, wealth protection and inheritance tax planning, the administration of complex estates, inheritance and trust services and on all elderly client matters. The firm provides the whole range of complementary private client services to individuals, with high-quality advice in family matters, litigation, property, conveyancing and regulatory areas.

Agriculture: the excellent reputation of the Tees agricultural team is reflected by the firm being one of just 16 legal practices on the national NFU panel.  In 2018, Tees was successful in its bid to be re-appointed to the panel for the next three years. It advises in all aspects of agricultural law, including restructuring farm enterprises for inheritance tax and capital gains purposes. The firm continues to act for farming and land-owning clients in contracting the acquisition and sale of farmland for development. Additionally, our focus on renewable energy projects has seen us working with high-profile clients in the renewable energy sector, advising on solar, wind, wave, and biomass energy.

Commercial property: the reach of the Tees commercial property team goes far beyond its geographical locations of the South East and East Anglia, and it receives many instructions from London and across the UK, acting in transactions ranging from retail and development projects through to agricultural businesses. The team handles options, overage and subject to planning deals, and also acts for development funders. Its lawyers have extensive experience in all aspects of commercial conveyancing including portfolio work, acquisitions and sales, landlord and tenant matters, planning and licensing.

Family: the family department specialises in high-value and complex claims, including those involving foreign property and cross-border or cross-jurisdictional issues. Whilst the firm offers a constructive and conciliatory approach to family law through their mediation and collaborative practice, it is also highly effective in litigation when required. The family department is also highly regarded for its expertise in representing parents and grandparents in children’s proceedings.

Corporate and commercial: Tees’ corporate and commercial team acts for clients in corporate finance, mergers, acquisitions and disposals and structured shareholder agreements, company restructuring, data protection, intellectual property, partnership (including LLPs) and employment matters and advise on a wide variety of commercial arrangements in various business sectors including transport and logistics, agriculture, hotel and leisure, professional services, technology, pharmaceuticals and education.

Clinical negligence: the firm boasts one of the foremost groups of clinical negligence solicitors in the region, with a team of experts specialising in brain injury, cancer, psychiatric injury, obstetric and gynaecology cases.

Litigation: the firm’s strong litigation team specialises in tailored solutions for clients in all forms of litigation, arbitration and ADR with a reputation for its ability to handle complex matters involving multiple issues. The team deal with all types of dispute both for large corporate clients, smaller businesses, entrepreneurs and individuals, ranging from contractual disputes and shareholder agreements, through to negligence, insolvency and contentious property issues for landowners, landlords or tenants. The department is experienced in handling high-value as well as high-volume cases, fixed fee debt collection and recovery work through to group actions.

Financial services: In addition to our legal services listed above, Tees also has a complementary and integrated independent financial services team which offer financial planning advice including investments, retirement planning, family and business protection, estate planning and wealth preservation, long-term care and equity release, together with pre-paid funeral plans. They are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.