Withy King and Lemon & Co to merge

Withy King and Lemon & Co have announced they are to merge, forming one of the largest law firms in Wiltshire.

Withy King, which has offices in Swindon and Marlborough, and Lemon & Co, which is based in Swindon, will join forces on 30 June 2014, strengthening the range of services and expertise they provide to businesses and private clients.

[caption id="attachment_2772" align="alignright" width="269"] Pictured: Graham Street and Deirdre Moss[/caption]

Graham Street, Managing Partner at Withy King, said: “This is a great opportunity for two like-minded firms to strengthen and expand the range of services they offer to clients in Wiltshire and further afield. Lemon & Co has a well-established private client practice renowned for its family and residential property services and a robust corporate services and commercial property offering, which will complement Withy King’s work in these areas. We are very pleased to welcome the team at Lemon & Co to our firm and look forward to working closely together to achieve our ambitions of providing an unbeatable service to our clients and achieving our aims of becoming a UK Top 100 law firm.”

Deirdre Moss, Managing Partner at Lemon & Co, said: “We are delighted to be merging with Withy King, a firm with an outstanding reputation and with such a fine progressive approach. The two firms will complement each other in terms of services to our respective clients as well as providing additional breadth and depth right across the legal services we offer. Our founder Harold Lemon started practising as a solicitor in Swindon just about 100 years ago; we are proud of our heritage, culture and values as are Withy King; there is great synergy.”

Withy King, which was recently ranked in the Sunday Times Top 100 Best Companies to work for, employs 280 people across a network of offices, including a team of 30 based in Swindon, and has a turnover of £18.1m.

Lemon & Co has a staff of 40, including three full equity partners, and a turnover of £2.4m.

Withy King will be moving from its current offices in Old Town to join Lemon & Co’s team based in Regent Circus. All staff are currently involved in consultation discussions to manage the integration of the two firms.

The newly merged firm will initially be known in Swindon as Withy King, incorporating Lemon & Co.

The value of the deal and other commercially sensitive information have not been disclosed.

Rapidly-expanding Withy King, which has offices in Swindon, Marlborough, Bath, Oxford, Abingdon, Thame and London, acquired law firm Whetter Duckworth Fowler based in Wheatley, Oxfordshire, in December 2013.