Southerns is a 21st Century firm of solicitors which can trace it origins back to the 18th Century and the formation of a legal practice by Lawrence Shaw in Burnley in1792.

Over the following two centuries that small firm saw many changes of name and partners and by 1992 was known as Southern, Jobling & Ashworth and was practising from the present head office of the firm at Mackenzie House, 68 Bank Parade, Burnley.  In 1992 the firm had four partners and celebrated its bi-centenary in several ways including the publication of a History of the Firm produced by one of its former partners.

In the years immediately following 1992, the partners realised that the demands of a successful late 20th Century practice required a larger base and in 1994 a merger took place of Southern, Jobling & Ashworth with another respected local firm namely Cooper, Smith & Williams.   This firm had been founded by Henry G. W. Cooper who had started out as an articled clerk to a predecessor firm of Southern, Jobling & Ashworth.

On 1st September 1994 the newly merged firm began to practice under the name Southern Cooper & Partners.   This brought the number of partners in the firm to seven and the number of staff to around forty – and so the firm was able to divide itself into departments and its partners and fee earners were able to specialise in particular areas of legal practice. 

A further expansion took place on 1st September 1998 when the firm of Currie & Sons amalgamated with Southern Cooper & Partners and the two partners in Currie & Sons joined the firm as Consultants.  The firm of Currie & Sons was founded by Kenneth Currie who also had started out as an articled clerk to a predecessor firm of Southern, Jobling & Ashworth.

The final step in the creation of the present day firm took place on 1st June 1999 with the merger of Southern Cooper & Partners with the local firm of Whittle & Whittaker which practised from offices in Nelson and Colne.  With this merger the firm changed its name to Southerns and has practised under that name since 1st June 1999.

The present day firm is clearly a very different organisation to that small practice created by Lawrence Shaw in 1792.  In the conclusion to the brief history of the firm written in 1992,  the author expressed the hope that it would be possible, after another century, to update the history with the details of a further century of successful legal practice.

The present partners of Southerns share that aspiration and seek to achieve that aim by embracing new methods of legal practice and technology in the 21st Century in order to create a firm which is able to offer to all its clients a first class legal service as all its predecessor firms have done.

It is unlikely that in 1792 Lawrence Shaw would have thought of communicating with clients and potential clients through the medium of the internet and it is difficult to imagine how the partners in 2092 may be communicating with their clients after another century of technological development.  The constant ethos of the firm across the centuries has been to provide a first class legal service to all its clients and to put the interests of its clients first in all matters.  No matter how much legal practice and communication have changed in the past or will change in the future, that guiding principle remains.