Providing legal services to local communities for over 100 years

While the firm enjoys a lineage that stretches back over 100 years, it is only from the 50s that a clearer and more vivid image emerges from the pages of official records.

It was in the harbour city of Portland that the firm gained a strong foothold and was the setting for its consolidation over the opening decades of the century, although official records are sketchy. So we take up the story in the early 50s, when the firm was called Harris & Williamson, named after John Samuel Harris, and one of only two law firms in town. It was then located at 41B Percy Street.

An early employee of the firm, Mrs. June Amos, still has vivid memories of working in the office. Each solicitor had his own secretary but even then, the office was always busy, partly because there was so much manual labour required in running an office.

Mrs Amos recalls typing copies of the leases for the Portland Harbour Trust, one of the firm's major clients at that time. Four copies of the lease were required and, as this was long before the advent of photocopiers, the lease was composed on a manual typewriter with a sheet of carbon paper inserted between each copy to make the duplicates. If a mistake was made, each copy had be corrected with the use of an eraser and re-typed in exactly the same place.

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