A GROUP set up to help new businesses has teamed up with the region's largest law firm to offer legal advice to start-up firms.

The County Durham-based Enterprise Group will work with Newcastle and Teesside-based Dickinson Dees on the service.

Many newly-launched businesses falter later down the line because of a lack of legal planning up-front to protect the company and its employees.

For many fresh ventures, legal advice of this kind is out of their league, but business start-up expert The Enterprise Group has enlisted the help of lawyers from Dickinson Dees to help.

The Enterprise Group will now offer Dickinson Dees' Kudos legal service to all its new start-up businesses and company growth projects.

The package offers smaller businesses a flexible-fee approach to many of Dickinson Dees' services.

The main benefit of this service will be to companies needing terms and conditions while preparing for their business or employment contracts.

John Heslop, of The Enterprise Group, said: "We advise all our new businesses to start on as low an overhead as possible.

"Keeping legal fees to a minimum can be dangerous but now we can offer our clients a watertight legal service from what we believe to be the best law firm operating in the North-East.

"We see it as a coup for The Enterprise Group and our clients to be able to tap into such high quality advisors for what is a crucial part of setting up a business."

Simon Watts, of Dickinson Dees, said: "We are delighted to be linking up with The Enterprise Group, who will be able to take our Kudos service out into the broader community, thanks to their grassroots links.

"The service is a new legal business advisory service, designed exclusively for growing small and medium businesses and start-ups.

The Enterprise Group recently celebrated helping its 150th business since starting a year ago.

It is made up of private sector specialists, including accountants, public relations experts, business development managers, Internet developers and niche business start-up specialists, who have banded together to back a fresh push to help County Durham rise up the UK league of counties that embrace the entrepreneurial culture.

For information about starting a business or developing a new business further, The Enterprise Group team can be contacted on 0191-377 9888.