Womble Bond Dickinson

Womble Bond Dickinson, the firm with possibly the most ridiculous name in a profession that has given the world Coffin Mew, Moon Beever and Wright Hassall, has a storied history.

Dickinson Dees was Newcastle’s largest and most venerable law firm. Realising it had saturated its local market it ventured outwards in the mid-2000s, opening in York and on Teesside but showing little inclination to move further South or be anything other than a Northern firm, speculation that it needed a London presence notwithstanding. As late as 2010 the stated goal was to be the ‘leading independent law firm outside London’.

Despite this unequivocal statement, it was not entirely a surprise when the firm merged with Bond Pearce in 2013. Dickinson Dees’ unchallenged dominance in Newcastle meant it was under no pressure to be the most dynamic of firms. While it had long held a reputation for excellence in the North, in its latter years it started to attract criticism as being a staid old-boys’ club and during the recession took flak for laying off promising young talent in favour of an old guard of partners. A shake-up was most definitely in order and relocating the York office to Leeds, as the firm did in 2011, was not going to be enough.

Bond Pearce was not exactly an inspiring merger partner but with offices across the South of England (London, Bristol, Southampton and its historic home, Plymouth) it complemented Dickinson Dees’ profile nicely. It too had suffered in the recession, downsizing its personal injury practice and closing an Exeter office in the process, but it had also opened up in Aberdeen.

The new firm, Bond Dickinson, lasted five years before the arrival of North Carolina firm Womble Carlyle on the scene. The merger went live at the end of 2017 with Jonathan Blair, managing partner at Dickinson Dees since 2007, made co-CEO. He announced that the new firm will target domestic mergers in each of its jurisdictions for future growth. The first of these came with Californian IP specialist Blakely Sokoloff Taylor Zafman shortly after the initial merger; since then there have been no further developments on the expansion front.

 

 

	Dickinson Dees managing partner	Dickinson Dees senior partner
1987		Robert Dickinson
1990	Graham Wright (role created)
1997	Neil Braithwaite	Graham White	Bond Pearce managing partner	Bond Pearce chair
1999			Simon Richardson
2005			Victor Tettmar
2007	Jonathan Blair	Robin Bloom
2010		John Marshall		Nick Page
	Bond Dickinson managing partner	–	–	Bond Dickinson chair
2012	Jonathan Blair	–	–	Nick Page
	Womble Bond Dickinson UK managing partner	–	Womble Bond Dickinson US chair	Womble Bond Dickinson UK chair
2018	Jonathan Blair	–	Betty Temple	Simon Richardson
2021		–		Nick Barwood
2022	Paul Stewart (announced)	–