Founded 1894.
Built for now.
Ashcombe & Hale has occupied the same building on Lincoln's Inn Fields for more than a century. The standard has not moved with us either.
The firm was founded in 1894 by Walter Ashcombe, a litigator of independent means, and his contemporary Thomas Hale, a corporate solicitor with a particular gift for ECM. Both believed that the work was the firm — and the work has remained the firm.
Three generations of the Ashcombe family practised here before the partnership took its current form. What has not changed is the standard: to be the firm clients trust with the matters that cannot afford to go wrong.
We are proudly independent, and we intend to remain so.
Four convictions.
We answer only to our clients. The firm has been continuously and privately owned for one hundred and thirty years.
We accept fewer matters than we are offered, so that those we do accept receive the firm's full attention.
Most of what we do never reaches the public record. That is by design, and by client preference.
There is no model of leverage that delivers the work to the level our clients expect. So we do not use one.
One hundred and thirty years.
- 1894Founding
Walter Ashcombe and Thomas Hale establish chambers at 14 Lincoln's Inn Fields.
- 1923Royal Courts
First instructed in the Commercial Court — a practice that has continued without interruption.
- 1971International
Opened a corporate practice handling cross-border M&A from London.
- 1998Modern partnership
Reorganised as a limited liability partnership; corporate and litigation groups formalised.
- 2014Private client
Established a dedicated private client and tax group serving internationally mobile families.
- 2024Today
Forty-six partners, 170 lawyers, and the same address.