History
The firm was established on 1 January 1977 when John Sommerville and Ron Rushton merged their respective practices to form Sommerville & Rushton, setting up the new firm’s first office in London Road in the historic city of St Albans.
The original two partners first met in 1963 when they worked together in the Patent and Trade Mark Department of the British General Electric Company. They remained in contact and became good friends over the ensuing years. In 1971 John established his own practice in St Albans so when Ron started his practice in 1975, the two shared an office suite in the city. The two practices developed side-by-side leading within two years to the establishment of Sommerville & Rushton. One of the clients that Ron Rushton brought with him to the new practice was British Rail. Even though British Rail has been through many changes over the ensuing years, they still remain a client of Scott & York.
In 1990 Ron decided to retire and at this point the practice became the St Albans office of Marks & Clerk. In 1997 John followed suit, leaving the firm to continue growing healthily under the Marks & Clerk umbrella for a further nine years until the firm became what it is today - Scott & York Intellectual Property Law.
When John retired, the office was led by Richard Maury and then latterly by Andrew Mackenzie until, in 2006 Andrew and one of the other St Albans partners, Jonathan Midgley, decided to separate again from Marks & Clerk and bought out the practice. The unusual choice of name for the firm, unusual in that Scott & York does not include the names of the owners, was eventually arrived at via the family roots of the partners Andrew (Scotland) and Jonathan (Yorkshire).
The London Office was opened in February 2009 and since the launch of the Scott & York brand the firm goes from strength to strength with continued growth and expansion into new territories backed by an exceptional team of qualified IP personnel and with the aid of a trusted team of experienced support staff.
