The new firm, Trustlaw Solicitors, will join forces with established local business Trustlaw Financial Services to provide integrated legal and financial services. In doing so, it becomes the first firm of its kind in the area.

Trustlaw Solicitors brings together the 30 years experience of leading Teesside solicitor and former Jackson’s partner Rosemary Young with the entrepreneurial drive of solicitor and independent financial adviser Stephen Gibbens, who established Trustlaw Financial Services almost ten years ago.

The new firm will provide financial and wealth management advice alongside estate planning, wills and probate work to ensure family finances are protected and the right investment portfolios are put in place to fund their future needs.

Stephen says he felt the time was right to strengthen the legal dimension of the Trustlaw service portfolio in order to deliver ‘unique and holistic’ financial and legal support to clients across Teesside and North Yorkshire:

“At a time when many families are having to make their savings work harder for them or are facing the challenge of working out how to pay for care as they get older we see a real need for a service that brings it all together,” he says.

“Rosemary and I have worked together within our respective firms for the last nine years to offer this integrated approach to financial and legal support. Over that time, we realised that we share the same vision, and it seemed a logical step to formally combine Rosemary’s extensive legal expertise with the financial planning services Trustlaw has been successfully delivering to families across the region for almost a decade.”

Rosemary adds, “Stephen and I know we work incredibly well together and it is our goal to deliver the highest quality advice in an open and transparent pricing structure, taking an innovative approach and incorporating technology into the practice to ensure our time is best spent advising clients.

“No client is too small, and we know we’ve succeeded when we hear clients say that they see us as ‘part of the family’.

“Many of Stephen’s clients have been with the firm since day one, and we see scope to take the business forward by extending the support we can offer to those clients – and others – by delivering the quality of service that will keep those relationships strong and by maintaining the clear focus on meeting client needs that has defined the Trustlaw brand.”

But instead, the first female president of the Tees Valley Law Society and diploma-qualified Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners member plans to join forces with the entrepreneurial talent of local solicitor and financial adviser, Stephen Gibbens, to create a unique new business that will combine specialist legal services with financial advice to help families plan more effectively for their future.

The new firm, which launches next month, will draw on Rosemary’s extensive estate planning work with private clients at law firm, Jacksons, to deliver integrated legal and financial advice in partnership with Stephen Gibbens.

She says, “In recent years I’ve found that more and more of my clients need expert financial advice as part of their estate planning.  The two are inevitably intertwined.  For example, nowadays if you want to put provision in place for long-term care should it be needed in the future, you also need to think carefully about how that care will be funded.”

Rosemary has left Jacksons on good terms to launch the new venture, and envisages the two firms continuing to refer work to one another:

“Clients often need advice that extends beyond financial and estate planning, and the team at Jacksons is well placed to deliver that support,” she says.

“I’ve always aimed high, I love a challenge and I felt the time was right for a new venture that will deliver something unique and of real benefit to people across Teesside.  I never look back, and have never before looked forward to the future with such energy.

“We’re finalising the details of the new business now ready for launch in April. It’s a very exciting time, and I’m looking forward to this next stage of my career.”