Warren & Allen shuts as partners clash over future

Dissolved: discord scuppers 100-year-old Nottingham firm

Nottingham law firm Warren & Allen has shut down because its partners could not agree on which direction it should take, it emerged last week.

The 13-partner firm had a broad commercial and private client practice.

It had been in business since 1897 and closed after months of intense discussions in the partnership about the future.The firm, which formally dissolved at the end of last week, had three offices: its head office in Nottingham, one in Bingham, Nottinghamshire, and the other in Ilkeston, Derbyshire.Litigation and corporate work was the biggest single source of income, representing 22% of the firm's business.

Property and family were next (20% each), followed by private client (18%), crime (14%) and personal injury (6%).It had a fee-earning staff of around 36, including five trainees, with as many again in non-fee-earning roles.One of its strategic aims was to become 'the commercial choice of all small and medium-sized businesses within the area'.Former partner Robin Wright - who specialised in business affairs and commercial property - said the closure had been on the cards since problems 'blew up' in October 2001.'We have closed because we could not agree a future strategy for the firm.

Some of us wanted to continue to be a general practice, while others thought we could not continue being all things to all people,' he explained.

'At the end of the day it was a democracy, and we decided to go our separate ways.'Almost all the firm's lawyers have now found other positions, mainly in the city.

Mr Wright is set to move to fellow Nottingham firm Fraser Brown.

'Warren & Allen had been around for more than 100 years, so it is very sad,' he said.Paula Rohan