History and Development

Alan Joelson was subsequently joined by Paul Wilson, resulting in the change of name to Joelson Wilson. Their overriding vision when establishing the firm still continues today – to provide first class, proactive, partner-led legal advice with a specialist and in-depth understanding of each client’s business sector. In the early 1980s Sheldon Cordell and David Clifton became partners in the firm and, together with Paul Wilson and Paul Baglee, continued to extend the scope and ambit of the firm’s work. They were joined as partners by Suzanne Davies in 1998 and Paul Chiappe in 2003, each of whom have been instrumental in the further development of the firm to the position that it holds today.

We now have nine partners and eight other lawyers who provide practical and commercial legal advice in respect of the specialist areas of law undertaken at the firm. We are proud of the fact that three of the partners started their legal careers as trainees at Joelson Wilson and that more than 45% of our other lawyers also trained here. Many of our other support staff have also spent a large proportion of their working lives with the firm. This degree of staff retention engenders a level of continuity which assists us in providing an effective and consistent approach to client legal advice and is invaluable in developing long term relationships with our clients.

In 2006 the firm relocated from New Cavendish Street to its current premises at Portland Place, designed by Robert Adam in the early 1770s as a “street of palaces”. A previous resident in the latter part of the nineteenth century was the 1st earl of Selborne, a lawyer who, as Lord Chancellor, carried out a major reform of the English court system. More recently 30 Portland Place was the private residence of the art historian Lord Clark, best known for his pioneering television series “Civilisation”.