A NORTH-EAST law firm is looking to expand outside the region after recording a £1m turnover in only two years.

Cinnamon Property Lawyers is aiming to quadruple this figure within three years by targeting specific areas of the country in which to provide conveyancing services through a series of local partnerships.

The company was founded by managing director John Cook in autumn 2008, and was initially staffed by a number of lawyers and other key staff who had been made redundant when Dickinson Dees’ volume property business was sold.

Despite the slump in the property market, Cinnamon has succeeded in the past two years by combining what it describes as traditional legal practice and service ethics with strategic use of new technologies.

Having secured a significant percentage of the North-East property market, it is now looking to build the Cinnamon brand in areas such as South Yorkshire, Birmingham, Bristol and the home counties, working with lawyers who provide the contact on the ground while managing the administration from its Team Valley, Gateshead, headquarters.

Its expansion plans are being supported with a £90,000 investment from regional fund management firm NEL Fund Managers, via the Finance For Business North-East Growth Fund.

Cinnamon does not use a call centre to process inquiries. Instead, clients deal directly with named conveyancing professionals throughout their contact with the firm.

The company employs a team of 20 people, a figure that Mr Cook is aiming to increase by another eight in the next six months, and to at least double within the next three years.

He said: “Even though the company was set up right in the heart of the credit crunch, we always knew that our service offering had the potential to succeed, and being able to come this far so fast is down to the determination and skill of the Cinnamon team.

“We have done a lot of research into transaction levels in different parts of the country. Even taking a conservative view of what is still a relatively flat market, we can see a range of commercial opportunities for us to target.”

Jane Siddle, investment executive at NEL Fund Managers, said: “For a firm in this sector to stay in business over the past two years would have been a real achievement, so to build £1m turnover from scratch shows the quality of the Cinnamon proposition and they now have the resources to become even more successful.”