Legal 500 ranked · Lexcel accredited · Harrogate and Leeds 2 North Park Road, Harrogate 01423 509 000
BERWINS Solicitors · Harrogate · Leeds Talk to us 01423 509 000
Harrogate, North Yorkshire Legal 500 ranked Lexcel accredited

The Harrogate solicitors at 2 North Park Road.

Berwins is a Legal 500 ranked Yorkshire firm with four named heads of department. Danielle Day leads Family as Managing Director; Derek Hellawell leads Life; Michelle Crowhurst leads Property; Thato Mashishi leads Corporate, including Berwins Digital out of the Leeds Platform office. Underneath all four sits a single public commitment, The Berwins Way: ten percent off our fees if you are unhappy with the service, no challenge.

Send an enquiry Call 01423 509 000
Legal 500 Yorkshire and Humber, Family / Private Client
Lexcel Law Society senior practice standard
CQS Conveyancing Quality Scheme
STEP Trust and Estate Practitioners
View over Harrogate's Valley Gardens and the Royal Pump Room, around the corner from the Berwins office at 2 North Park Road
Harrogate · HG1 A two-minute walk from the office on North Park Road to Valley Gardens and the Royal Pump Room.
2 offices · Harrogate and Leeds
4 named heads of department
10% off the fees if you are unhappy
L500 Legal 500 ranked, Yorkshire and Humber
What we do

Four practice areas. One firm. The head of each area is the partner who runs your file.

A Harrogate practice deliberately built around four heads of department rather than a list of two dozen solicitors. The combination of Family and Corporate in the same firm is what lets us handle the work where the two overlap, a North Yorkshire pattern that the next firm down the road usually has to refer out.

01 / Family

Divorce, financial settlement, children. Legal 500 ranked.

Danielle Day, Head of Family

Divorce and the financial settlement that follows it, including pension sharing and divorces involving farming and family-business assets. Children arrangements, pre and post-nuptial agreements. Three named alternative processes that try to keep separating couples out of court: the Berwins Pathway, Resolution Together for couples who want a single solicitor to advise them jointly, and Collaborative Family Law for partners who want their own solicitors but the same room.

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02 / Life

Wills, Powers of Attorney, Estate administration and probate.

Derek Hellawell, Head of Life

Will drafting and reviews when life changes (marriage, children, second marriages, blended families, the sale of a business). Both Lasting Powers of Attorney drafted in the same appointment as the will, and registered at the Office of the Public Guardian in-house. Full estate administration after a death, including obtaining the Grant of Probate, dealing with HMRC on Inheritance Tax, and distributing to beneficiaries. STEP qualified.

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03 / Property

Residential and commercial property. CQS accredited.

Michelle Crowhurst, Head of Property

Residential conveyancing held to the Law Society Conveyancing Quality Scheme audit: sale, purchase, transfer of equity, remortgage, leasehold and freehold, new-build covenants on the estates north of Harrogate. Commercial property end-to-end: commercial leases, real-estate finance, selling land for development, property development, building a property portfolio.

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04 / Corporate

Mergers, acquisitions, Berwins Digital, IP and data.

Thato Mashishi, Head of Corporate

Mergers, acquisitions and investment for owner-managed businesses, particularly across Yorkshire and the North East. Specialist commercial advice for digital businesses through Berwins Digital out of the Leeds Platform office: SaaS contracts, data protection and privacy, intellectual property, software and CMS development support, training for business leaders.

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The Berwins Way

Care and quality. If the service slips, you tell us why, and we take ten percent off the fees. No challenge, no defence.

The Berwins Way is the operational commitment that sits under every file in every practice area. Great service is as important as the legal outcome. If a client is unhappy with the service they receive at any point, they tell us why, we take ten percent off the fees, and we learn for next time. There is no formal complaint to file, no committee to convene, no small-print exception. The firm does it.

Underneath the guarantee sits the structural choice: four named heads of department, one Managing Director (Danielle Day, also Head of Family), an Operations Director (Caroline Davison) and a Compliance Associate Director (Catherine Prosser). The firm is deliberately small enough that the head you meet at the first appointment is the head who signs off every milestone on your file.

We provide all-round protection. We take the initiative to look at your personal and business needs from every angle, so we can predict where issues might arise further down the line. We call this approach Berwins 360. The Berwins Way, /why-berwins/
The specialism, in detail

Family financial disputes in Yorkshire, where the divorce sits over a farm or a family business.

The Family practice at Berwins is Legal 500 ranked in Yorkshire and Humber. The work the firm sees most of, and where the combination of Family and Corporate in the same building matters most, is the high-value family financial dispute in the North Yorkshire catchment.

01

Pension sharing on divorce

Pension assets are commonly the largest single item on the balance sheet at a Yorkshire divorce, larger than the family home. Berwins handles the pension-sharing order from instruction to implementation, working with actuaries and trustees, and quantifying the cash-equivalent transfer value before any settlement is signed off rather than after.

02

Divorces involving farming and rural businesses

The North Yorkshire pattern: a farming partnership held in a family LLP across two or three generations, divorce between the owner-operators or between the next generation. Berwins reads the LLP deed alongside the matrimonial finance order, separates partnership assets from matrimonial assets, and works with land agents on valuation. Family and Corporate sit in the same firm, so the file does not get referred out at the awkward moment.

03

The Berwins Pathway and Resolution Together

Two named alternative routes for separating couples who want the divorce to stay out of contested court applications. The Berwins Pathway is a structured sequencing of legal, financial and emotional steps. Resolution Together is the model where one solicitor advises both partners jointly, suitable where the broad shape of the separation is already agreed. The right route is chosen at the opening conversation with Danielle Day.

Lead

Danielle Day

Managing Director, Head of Family

Direct family-law enquiries: law@berwins.co.uk

The credential, on file

Legal 500 ranks Berwins in Yorkshire and Humber.

The Legal 500 directory ranks Berwins in the Family / Private Client tier for the Yorkshire and Humber region. The ranking is built from interviews with clients, opposing counsel and peers in the region, and is reviewed annually. It is the single best independent signal that the Family team is doing serious work at the regional level, and it sits alongside the firm's Lexcel accreditation (the Law Society's senior practice-management standard), CQS for conveyancing, and STEP for the Life team.

Send an enquiry

Tell us briefly what you need. The enquiry goes to the right head of department.

One short form, routed by department to Danielle, Derek, Michelle or Thato directly. We reply by close of the same working day Monday to Friday, or you can phone the office on 01423 509 000 during 9am to 5pm. Initial conversations are confidential and free of charge.

  • Reply by close of the same working day, Monday to Friday.
  • Or speak to the office on 01423 509 000.
  • The Berwins Service Level Guarantee applies from the first instruction.
Danielle Day Managing Director, Family
Derek Hellawell Life (Wills, Probate, LPA)
Michelle Crowhurst Property (Residential, Commercial)
Thato Mashishi Corporate, Berwins Digital

Enquiry

By sending this enquiry you agree we may store it for the purpose of replying. Nothing here forms a retainer; that only happens after a written engagement letter.

Head office

2 North Park Road, Harrogate

2 North Park Road
Harrogate
North Yorkshire
HG1 5PA

Office 01423 509 000

Email law@berwins.co.uk

Press press@berwins.co.uk

Walk two minutes from Harrogate railway station, around the corner from Valley Gardens and the Royal Pump Room

2 North Park Road, Harrogate HG1 5PA. Two minutes from the railway station. Open in Google Maps ↗
Second office

Platform, New Station Street, Leeds

Platform
New Station Street
Leeds
LS1 4JB

Office 01423 509 000

Use the Leeds desk for Berwins Digital, Corporate and Commercial work, and meetings with clients based in Leeds and the West Riding

Walk the Platform building sits directly above Leeds railway station

Platform, New Station Street, Leeds LS1 4JB. Directly above Leeds station. Open in Google Maps ↗
When we answer

Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Appointments by arrangement outside those hours.

Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm · office, phone and email all answered
Saturday and Sunday Office closed · enquiry form triaged Monday morning
By arrangement Evening and Saturday appointments for clients who cannot make working hours
Remote Video and telephone appointments as standard for clients outside the immediate catchment

The number reaches a person, not a switchboard. 01423 509 000 is answered at the Harrogate office during working hours and routed straight to the right head of department, or to a named member of their team if they are with a client.

The team

Heads of department, photographed at the Harrogate office.

Danielle Day, Managing Director and Head of Family at Berwins Solicitors, photographed at the Harrogate office
Danielle Day Managing Director · Head of Family
Derek Hellawell (Head of Life) and Lynsey Bashforth (Associate Director, Life) at the Harrogate office
Derek Hellawell, Lynsey Bashforth Life: Wills, Probate, Powers of Attorney
Thato Mashishi (Head of Corporate and Commercial) and Jonny Noble (Associate, Corporate) at the Harrogate office
Thato Mashishi, Jonny Noble Corporate and Commercial · Berwins Digital
The Platform building above Leeds railway station, the Berwins second office
Platform, Leeds The second office · Berwins Digital and corporate desk
Frequently asked

Five questions worth answering before you instruct.

What is the Berwins Service Level Guarantee, and how do clients invoke it?

If a client is unhappy with the service they receive, they tell the firm why and Berwins takes 10 percent off the fees. There is no challenge to the request and no defence. The firm does it, and learns from the feedback for next time. The guarantee applies to every matter, in every practice area, without small-print exclusions. It is the firm's public commitment that great service is as important as the legal outcome.

Will the head of department I meet at the first appointment run my file?

The firm is deliberately structured around four named heads of department: Danielle Day for Family, Derek Hellawell for Life, Michelle Crowhurst for Property, Thato Mashishi for Corporate. The head you meet at the opening conversation is the head responsible for the file. Day-to-day work may be supported by an associate or a legal assistant from the same team, but the head stays on the file from instruction to completion and signs off every milestone.

Can Berwins handle a divorce that involves a farm or an owner-managed business?

Yes. The combination of a Legal 500 ranked Family team and a Corporate and Commercial team in the same firm is the reason this work sits well at Berwins. Pension sharing on divorce, divorce settlements involving farming partnerships (commonly North Yorkshire LLPs held across generations), divorces where one or both parties owns a trading limited company, and pre and post-nuptial agreements to protect inherited wealth, are all handled jointly across Family and Corporate without referring out.

Do clients have to travel to the Harrogate office in person?

No. The Harrogate office at 2 North Park Road and the Leeds office at Platform on New Station Street are both available for in-person appointments, including evenings and Saturdays by arrangement, but every Berwins head of department also takes video and telephone appointments as standard. Probate clients living elsewhere in the UK, separated couples now living apart, and digital-business clients across Yorkshire and the North all routinely instruct without ever coming into the office.

How do the Berwins Pathway, Resolution Together and Collaborative Family Law differ?

The Berwins Pathway is the firm's structured low-conflict process for separating couples, sequencing the legal, financial and emotional steps so each is taken in the right order rather than all at once. Resolution Together is a model where one solicitor advises both partners jointly throughout, suitable where the couple agrees on the broad shape of the separation. Collaborative Family Law gives each partner their own solicitor but commits all four to meeting in the same room and avoiding contested court applications. The right option is chosen at the first appointment based on the family situation.