Member Article

Dual award win for Durham law firm

Durham law firm, Swinburne Maddison LLP, one of the region’s fastest growing law firms, underlined its reputation for outstanding legal work by winning two award categories in the recent Northern Law Awards.

Its property team, headed up by partners Victoria Walton and Kate Stephenson, won Property Team of the Year while its second award, Young Lawyer of the Year, was justly won by partner, David Low, who, in fighting off stiff competition from six other nominated finalists was commended by the judges for being instrumental in developing the property litigation team within the firm, winning lucrative local authority work and being promoted to partner before the age of 30.

These recent awards are just two of many that Swinburne Maddison has picked up for its outstanding legal work and lawyers at a time when the practice continues to see growth across all departments.

The firm’s success has led to ambitious expansion plans. A campaign is now underway to recruit three new lawyers – two are required to expand capacity in the property team –as well as three trainees, two secretaries and an apprentice in business administration.

In selecting Swinburne Maddison for the Property Team of the Year award, judges were unanimous in their decision, citing the impressive range of clients the firm acts for, the calibre of its instructions and the way in which Swinburne Maddison has focused on training its team, often working in-house for clients to set up systems for them.

Partner Victoria Walton, commented: “Winning this award is down to the efforts of the whole team as well as the strength of the other departments that we regularly work with including employment, corporate and private client, which allows us to give a comprehensive service to our clients. We are very fortunate to work with top class clients and deal with top class work and the award is the icing on the cake in an excellent year for us.

“As a result of the investments we have made in training, IT and infrastructure together with the recruitment of highly qualified and experienced staff, we are competing with larger, regional and national firms consistently delivering to a high standard in respect of technically challenging and complex instructions. I believe we are now embarking on a very exciting phase in our development at Swinburne Maddison.”

Commenting on his award, partner, David Low, an expert in property litigation department, added:

“I was absolutely delighted to win this award, not only because it recognises the increasing presence of the litigation team in the region, but also because my colleague, Martyn Tennant, won it last year, so for the firm, it is a tremendous accolade and testament to Swinburne Maddison’s high standards of training and the ambition and development of its staff.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Mandy Peel .