Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP — England

Adam Carling

Adam is a partner in the corporate team in London. He advises on transactions on the equity capital markets as well as public and private M&A. His main sectors of focus are energy, technology and real estate. His clients include some of the leading mid-market investment banks in London; he also acts for listed (Main Market and AIM) and private companies. The deals he works on often have a cross-border element. He has extensive experience of pan-European M&A and regularly advises North American clients on acquisitions and financings. He has advised on a number of public M&A transactions, including takeover offers and schemes of arrangement. He led the team which advised AIM-listed Rotala plc on its take-private transaction, which won the ‘Deal of the Year (£10 – 50m)’ category at the Insider Midlands Dealmakers Awards 2024. · Corporate / M&A

Adam McGiveron

Adam is a partner in the corporate team and is based in the Birmingham office. With more than 20 years’ experience in advising on all types of transactional work, he acts on a variety of M&A deals, private equity transactions, corporate reorganisations and shareholder arrangements. His clients include many entrepreneurs and directors of mid-market businesses for whom he can provide both a strategic overview and tactical advice. He is also recognised for offering specialist support to companies that are going through a legal process for the first time. · Corporate / M&A

Adele Ashton

Adele is a defamation and privacy specialist with over 15 years of experience. She advises both claimants and defendants in relation to defamation, privacy, breach of confidence, data protection and reputation management. She also regularly provides guidance in relation to forthcoming publications. Her clients have included private individuals, companies, charities, high profile figures and sportspeople. Recent work highlights include: successfully settling privacy claims for a number of 56 Dean Street patients following the disclosure of information by the sexual health clinic; acting for three individuals in misuse of private information claims arising out of Operation Elveden, an investigation into allegations of inappropriate payments by journalists to police officers and other public officials; acting for PC Toby Rowland in his high profile libel claim against Andrew Mitchell MP in relation to what became known as ‘Plebgate’; representing leading businessman Peter Cruddas in his libel action against The Sunday Times; acting for defendants Carmarthenshire County Council and its chief executive in a libel claim brought by a blogger and a successful counterclaim by the chief executive against the blogger. · Defamation

Adrian Moss

Director in charge of the trust and personal tax administration team. Specialist in the taxation of UK trusts, personal taxation of beneficiaries of UK and non-resident trusts. Recognised in Private Client Practitioner’s ‘Top 35 Under 35’ list. · Private Client

Alex McIntosh

Alex is a partner in the London office and a member of the firm’s shipping and international trade teams. He advises on disputes arising under charterparties, bills of lading, shipbuilding and restructuring contracts, as well as wet work, including casualties and LOFs. He is also experienced in trade, including letters of credit, sale and purchase contracts, factoring, debt collection, insurance (both marine and non-marine), coverage advice, facility agreements, transactional documentation and policy wordings. Alex's clients include shipowners, insurers, P&I clubs, charterers, traders, manufacturers and logistics providers. He has run court proceedings and arbitrations in many jurisdictions and has obtained and challenged arrests, injunctions and security measures worldwide. Alex lectures extensively on many legal and practical aspects of trade and shipping including charterparties, procurement and arbitration. He is the course director of the Lloyds Maritime Academy Certificate in Charterparties Distance Learning Course. · Shipping

Alex Prew

Alex is a partner in the real estate team in London. He specialises in real estate acquisitions and disposals, leases and asset management, and development projects. He also advises on the real estate aspects of financing transactions and corporate acquisitions. He acts for a broad range of clients including private and institutional investors, family offices, corporate occupiers and developers. Alex is regularly engaged by corporate occupiers to advise on their office headquarter requirements and assists FTSE 100 companies, pharmaceutical companies, insurers, law firms and recruitment companies. · Real Estate

Alexander Fox

Alex is a partner in the commercial dispute resolution group with particular expertise within the areas of technology, IP and media and insolvency. He advises on a variety of significant commercial disputes, including arbitrations, financial services, complex technology/healthcare disputes, regulatory issues, public/procurement and substantial national, and cross-border claims. Notable recent cases include the following: advising on the reported case of Jordan Grand Prix Ltd v Tiger Telematics Inc; R v Cockburn; advising Grant Thornton on the administration of Aquarius Limited; advising on the effect of the collapse of the split capital trust market and SWAPS claims. · Litigation

Alison Appelboam-Meadows

Alison is a partner in the PI and clinical negligence team, which handles a range of personal injury and clinical negligence cases. She has over 30 years’ experience in the field, with particular expertise in clinical negligence cases involving obstetric negligence. She has handled many cases on behalf of children with cerebral palsy as a result of ante-/peri-/post-natal events, running the cases to trial, if necessary, to achieve the best outcome for her clients, eg Zhang v Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Massey v Tameside & Glossop Acute Services NHS Trust. She also acts on behalf of adults who have sustained brain damage as a result of meningitis or hypoxia, eg Napoli v Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust, and those who have suffered significant spinal cord injuries. · Clinical Negligence

Alison Hills

Alison Hills is the head of the pensions team at Penningtons Manches Cooper. Alison has a broad range of pensions experience and provides her clients with well-reasoned, practical advice, having taken into account the relevant technical complexities and important reputational, commercial and personal factors. She is based in London but also works out of the Guildford and Basingstoke offices. Advising on all aspects of pensions law, her clients range from individuals and small self-administered schemes to trustees and sponsoring employers of large defined benefit multi-employer schemes with assets in excess of £350 million. Alison is well versed in advising overseas clients who may be less familiar with their UK pension obligations. Areas of particular specialism include advising on governance, pensions aspects of corporate restructurings/transactions including employer scheme-exits, section 75 debts, implementing flexible apportionment arrangements, member disputes, maladministration claims, implementing scheme benefit structure changes (including closure to accrual), liability management exercises such as pension increase exchange and enhanced transfer exercises, auto-enrolment compliance and salary sacrifice implementation. She is an associate of the Pensions Management Institute and a member of the Association of Pension Lawyers’ Education and Seminars Committee. · Pensions

Alison Johnson

Alison handles a wide practice covering the full spectrum of clinical negligence matters but with an emphasis on complex neurology cases, oncology, general practice, gynaecology and maternal injury, and paediatric claims. She is very focused on client care and ensuring that clients are looked after during the investigation process and then fully compensated. Alison has advised on a number of maximum severity claims recovering damages settlements of £10 million+, but she also has considerable experience of managing mid-high value claims, including fatal claims, often on a conditional fee agreement basis. Alison is an accredited solicitor with both the AvMA and Law Society specialist clinical negligence panels and receives enquiries through them. She is also a trained AvMA helpline volunteer and speaker. Alison is a mental health champion and culture and welfare partner for the personal injury and clinical negligence team and splits her time between the Basingstoke and Oxford offices. · Clinical Negligence

Amanda Andrews

Amanda is a partner in the family team and a member of Penningtons Manches Cooper’s private wealth group. She offers a depth of resource for clients and brings more than 25 years of experience in all aspects of family law, but especially complex children matters and high finance including offshore trusts, complicated property aspects and corporate structures. She also regularly negotiates complex pre- and post-nuptial agreements. Amanda is a trained mediator who strongly believes in resolution without recourse to court proceedings wherever possible. She approaches all her cases with the same pragmatic and empathetic approach, seeking to find sensible and fair solutions at the earliest opportunity be it in relation to children or the financial aspects of relationship breakdown. · Family

Amy Fox

Amy is a partner in the family team. She has experience in all aspects of the legal issues arising from relationship breakdown including the financial consequences of separation, arrangements for the care of children and obtaining financial relief after overseas proceedings. She has particular expertise in complex financial disputes, often with an international element. Amy has written a number of articles for New Law Journal and she drafted Penningtons Manches Cooper’s response to the government consultation on the reform of the legal requirements for divorce. · Family

Andrew Casstles

Partner specialising in social housing involving land acquisition and development, stock rationalisation/portfolio sales, planning and infrastructure agreements, nominations agreements, management agreements. Commercial property expertise within commercial conveyancing as well as development and landlord and tenant. · Real Estate

Andrew Haywood

Partner specialising in both contentious and non contentious employment law issues. He has particular experience in the areas of age discrimination and the enforcement of post-termination restrictions. His corporate practice is drawn from a number of sectors including media, retail and financial services where he advises on day-to-day and post-employment issues. Andrew also acts for several household names in the technology sector. He has specialist expertise in the sports and entertainment industry and heads up the firm’s sports and entertainment sector group. He has been instructed by sports clubs, agents and professionals on a variety of matters including disciplinary and contractual disputes. On the individual side, he advises many senior executives and non-UK domiciled high net worth individuals. · Employment

Andrew Mellor

Andrew is a partner in the real estate team in Birmingham. He advises property developers, owner occupiers, landlords, tenants and property investors on all aspects of non-contentious commercial property work. He specialises in commercial development and investment matters (including forward funding and joint ventures). Andrew has acted on a wide range of complex long-term mixed-use developments and redevelopments. He has particular experience in the industrial and logistics, research and development/high tech manufacturing, student accommodation and build to rent sectors. · Real Estate

Anna Frankum

A partner in the firm’s commercial, IP and IT team. Specialises in intellectual property, especially copyright and trade marks; and commercial contracts including agency, distribution and supply agreements. · Intellectual Property

Anna Worwood

Anna is the head of the family law department, and specialises in matrimonial, financial and children cases. She has extensive experience in cases of a complex nature (including those with international aspects) and a particular interest in international relocation cases. She represented the father in Re C [2003] 1 FLR 1066, the mother in Re D [2006] Fam Law 1006 and the father in Re C (International Relocation) [2015] EWCA 1305. Anna was included in The Lawyer’s Hot 100 2016. She is a trained collaborative lawyer. · Family

Anthea Christie

Anthea is a partner in the employment team in London. She advises on a range of contentious and non-contentious employment matters, and has particular expertise in discrimination, whistleblowing claims, regulatory issues, large group claims and test litigation. Dealing with tribunal, county court, High Court and appellate litigation, she represents clients from a wide range of industry sectors. She regularly assists staff associations and trade unions on all aspects of employment law, including regulatory issues and internal policies and procedures. She also provides advice to their members. · Employment

Ben Law

Ben is a partner in the real estate team in London. He is experienced in acting for developers, investors, occupiers, UHNW private clients and funders across a wide range of asset classes including offices, retail, industrial and residential property. Ben frequently advises on the sale and purchase of investment properties and the acquisition and structuring of commercial, mixed-use and residential development sites. He also acts for serviced-office operators. · Real Estate

Ben Robinson

Ben is a partner in the real estate litigation team and leads the team’s fire safety practice. He works closely with institutional landlords, investment funds and social housing providers in relation to policy level guidance on fire safety strategy across their portfolios, and provides ongoing advice in relation to the Government’s Non-ACM Building Safety Fund. Ben offers holistic landlord and tenant advice regarding the effective management of their portfolios, including on development disputes, breaches of covenant, forfeiture and the recovery of arrears. His expertise also extends to providing comprehensive advice on complex residential property issues including rent and service charge disputes (most recently the Supreme Court case of Aviva v Williams), enfranchisement claims, party wall disputes, boundary disputes and adverse possession claims. Ben also specialises in property-related professional negligence claims and vacant possession strategies for large-scale development sites. He has spoken at a number of events, such as the National Housing Federation’s annual ‘Leaseholder and Tenant Service Charges’ conference, and the Asset Management Conference (Housing Quality Network), where he leads peer-to-peer discussions on service charges and fire safety works, discussing apportioning and charging for fire safety improvements. Separately, he regularly contributes to articles on the issue (including a fire safety podcast for the leading real estate publication, Estates Gazette), together with seminars and bespoke training sessions for clients and other property professionals. · Real Estate

Binder Bansel

Binder is a partner in the employment team. He joined Penningtons Manches Cooper in 2017 from another leading City law firm where he was a partner for over 16 years. He advises on a broad range of contentious and non-contentious employment and partnership matters and is recognised, in particular, for his expertise in complex discrimination claims, class actions, collective labour and trade union law. Binder is experienced in all forms of employment litigation, both in the High Court and tribunals, as well as discrimination (in employment and partnership), regulatory issues and industrial action injunctions. He works for a wide range of staff associations and their members and, in addition, acts for senior employees and partners, frequently in relation to discrimination claims. Recognised as a leader in his field by a number of legal directories, Binder has been described as ‘extremely knowledgeable’; ‘excellent in his dealing with members and highly regarded for his expertise in discrimination and industrial action claims’; ‘knows his law and gets good results for his clients’; and ‘one of the very best employment lawyers in the UK. His ability to spot the key issues in a case is unrivalled and his legal analysis is always spot on. He is a modest but brilliant lawyer’. He is a past treasurer of the Employment Lawyers Association and is a frequent speaker within the profession and to clients. He is a regular media commentator on employment issues. · Employment

Charles Seaward

Charles is a consultant in the real estate team. His areas of expertise include the acquisition and disposal of land and buildings for occupation, investment and development, by way of agreements, leases, promotion agreements and joint ventures. He acts for clients in the office, wholesale and retail sectors, landowners seeking to maximise the value of their land holdings, and property funds. He has a particular interest in the entertainment sector, advising recording studios and record and music publishing companies. · Real Estate

Charlotte Hill

Charlotte is a partner in the commercial dispute resolution team and an experienced commercial litigator. She advises on a broad range of complex, high-value cross-border disputes across a number of commercial and business sectors, including financial services (having previously been on secondment at a large institutional bank), company disputes, corporate insolvency and civil fraud. She has specialist expertise in digital assets where she advises clients about cryptocurrencies, NFTs and blockchain disputes, and she successfully acted in one of the very few contested cryptocurrency disputes. In 2023, Charlotte won the esteemed title of ‘Woman of the Year – FinTech/Crypto Innovation – UK’ at the Citywealth Powerwomen Awards, for the impact of her work in the sector. She sits on the Law Society Council on behalf of civil litigators (non-personal injury) and is also the chair of EMEA for Multilaw's Young Lawyers Group. · Litigation

Chris Bates

Chris heads the construction advisory and dispute resolution team in London, specialising in construction and related insurance disputes. He focuses on handling high value and technically complex disputes, such as those in relation to post completion defects, professional negligence, payment claims, delay and prolongation, and termination issues. He is experienced in disputes arising from large-scale civil infrastructure schemes across all major sectors, as well as commercial building projects. He also regularly advises on construction insurance coverage matters, including undertaking complicated coverage investigations and disputes. Chris also specialises in building safety issues, acting for developers, owners, contractors, professionals, and insurers on a range of cladding and other fire safety related disputes. He has been consulted by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities over the practical impact of the changes introduced by the Building Safety Act 2022. He is experienced in all forms of dispute resolution used in the construction industry, including multi-party TCC litigation, arbitration, adjudication and mediation. He also regularly advises clients in the background on live projects to mitigate or avoid escalation into formal disputes. · Construction

Chris Syder

Chris is a partner in the employment team in London, with more than 25 years’ experience as a UK employment law specialist. His practice covers all aspects of English employment law, ranging from HR advisory to cross border compliance, trade union and employee relations issues, collective redundancies/restructuring, restrictive covenants, and whistleblowing. Chris also advises on employment tribunal claims, handling senior level grievances/disciplinaries and Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) regulatory issues. As one of our North America group lead partners, his role includes working regularly with US and Canadian clients. A CEDR accredited mediator, Chris has a keen interest in employment and commercial mediation. From 2011 to 2017, Chris was the CBI’s governing body representative for the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a specialised agency in the United Nations. Consequently, he fully understands the ILO’s supervisory system and the challenges faced by unionised businesses, especially those that are alleged to have breached ILO freedom of association and collective bargaining conventions. He has been named in the UK Top 100 Corporate Modern Slavery Influencers’ Index, which acknowledges individuals from all business sectors who are raising awareness of modern slavery and labour exploitation. Since 2019, he has collaborated with the Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors (APSCA) by sitting on their disciplinary panels to determine cases of breaches of APSCA’s code of professional standards. Chris was previously head of employment at a London-based international law firm. · Employment

Christopher Shelley

Partner in the IP and commercial department, specialising in intellectual property and competition law; practice includes all aspects of these areas of law, principally non-contentious; IP practice focuses on science and technology-based companies, particularly in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, and the publishing sector. · Intellectual Property

Claire McNamara

Claire is a partner in the firm’s best practice group and a member of the strategy board. As director of knowledge and learning, she is responsible for developing and driving the firm's knowledge management strategy and leading a highly regarded team of knowledge lawyers, knowledge and information professionals and technologists. She guides the learning and development team in delivering and supporting the firm’s training and continuing development programmes. Claire qualified as a construction litigation lawyer in 1999. She has acted for clients across the industry in a broad range of engineering, construction and commercial disputes. successfully concluding cases through negotiated settlements and where necessary at trial including to the Supreme Court. Having established and led knowledge functions at her previous firms, she joined Penningtons Manches Cooper in 2023. With over 15 years of knowledge management experience, her focus is on using knowledge, technology and project management expertise, to ‘makes things better’ - better for clients, better for the business and better for employees. One of Claire’s main drivers for her and the team is to identify opportunities for the firm to collaborate with clients, to help them deliver their own strategic goals. As a keen supporter of Penningtons Manches Cooper’s ambition to be regarded as the most human law firm and a qualified Mental Health First Aider, Claire works closely with colleagues on the delivery of the firm’s inclusion agenda. She is a qualified solicitor advocate and change management registered practitioner. She is a member of several key networks and committees supporting KM and innovation in the legal industry as well as a regular speaker at KM events and contributes to their advisory boards. · Knowledge Management

Clare Archer

Clare is a partner and head of the London private client team. She specialises in tax and estate planning to include the administration of large and complex estates, often with an international or contentious aspect; will and trust drafting, elderly client and capacity issues and a wide range of asset protection and equity work. · Private Client

Clare Arthurs

Clare heads the dispute resolution division and is a member of the firm's strategy board. A former commercial and public law litigator, Clare led the knowledge function for the commercial dispute resolution team prior to her appointment as partner in 2021, working across a broad range of specialisms including international litigation and arbitration, group actions, professional negligence, reputation management, and regulatory compliance. In recent years she has played a pivotal role in the introduction of new technology, business improvement and team leadership. Her responsibilities have also included organising training for fee earners and drafting and maintaining the department’s precedent documentation. She has devised and delivered a variety of client facing seminars. Clare is an established author in the legal press, writing for journals such as New Law Journal, Solicitors Journal, Commercial Litigation Journal, the International Bar Association Newsletter and Insolvency Intelligence. She has also edited the CDR department’s publications including client updates, topical ebulletins and the Commercial LiteBites series, which aims to provide clients with important practical pointers. · Dispute Resolution

Daff Richardson

Daff co-leads the firm’s multi-disciplinary education sector group, and is a partner in the employment department. She advises institutional, corporate and individual clients on strategic and high-value employment matters including reorganisations and restructuring. Daff also advises senior executives and employers on boardroom disputes, and executive appointments and terminations. Her employer clients include higher education institutions, household name charities, and technology sector clients. She has advised senior figures in life sciences, IT, and education. Penningtons Manches’ education sector group advises HEIs, private colleges, independent schools and other further and higher education institutions and charities. The group provides a full service to these clients including immigration advice, advice on corporate structures, charities, employment, real estate, governance, compliance and student issues. Daff’s personal practice includes advising individual academics and institutions on employment issues, particularly where disciplinary action is taken. She also advises institutions on student complaint matters. Her clients include a household name educational charity, several Colleges of the University of Oxford and a leading independent school. · Employment

Daniel Berry

Daniel advises on all aspects of intellectual property protection and enforcement in the UK and EU including trade marks, passing off, domain names, anti-counterfeiting, design rights, copyright, patents and confidential information. He works for clients across a variety of business sectors with particular expertise in the fashion, travel, food and drink, entertainment, agriculture, automotive and sports industries. His significant track record in all aspects of trade mark and design filing includes the prosecution and enforcement of rights before the UKIPO and EUIPO registries. He frequently advises on the registrability of brands, national and international portfolio management and the commercial exploitation of these rights. Daniel also specialises in IP litigation and has considerable experience before the English and Welsh Court and Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, as well as in UDRP proceedings before Nominet, WIPO and the Company Names Tribunal. He has a strong background in anti-counterfeiting matters, customs notices and criminal prosecutions. · Intellectual Property

Daniel Toop

Daniel is head of the Court of Protection team. He mainly supports those who have suffered catastrophic injuries as a result of medical negligence or personal injury and have been awarded substantial compensation to meet their future needs. With a particular interest in acquired brain injury, Daniel advises on a broad range of Court of Protection and personal injury trust issues for both professional and lay deputies and trustees. His area of specialism is working with and supporting the litigation process, both in clinical negligence and personal injury claims. This knowledge is essential in ensuring that the compensation, which can take many years to secure, is properly protected and managed, either through a personal injury trust or a deputyship. · Court of Protection

Darryl Kennard

Darryl is a partner in the marine, trade and energy team in the London office and a key member of the emergency response team. He is one of the few shipping lawyers who specialise in both ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ work from collisions, salvage, groundings, total losses, fires and piracy through to charterparty disputes and claims arising under bills of lading. Based in Norway for one year and in Singapore for five years, Darryl receives instructions from salvors, container lines, dry bulk and tanker owners as well as charterers, traders, P&I clubs and other insurers. · Shipping

David Kendall

David heads the business services division, with overall responsibility for its strategic direction, and is a member of the firm's strategy board. Senior partner specialising in mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, private equity corporate restructurings and insolvency related transactions. · Corporate / M&A

David Niven

David is a partner in the commercial dispute resolution group, specialising in high value, multi-party professional negligence actions against solicitors and other professionals. A leading UK lawyer for group actions, including in claims against solicitors for mis-sold properties, he has an established media profile, client following, and reputation for getting results. David is acting for hundreds of clients in numerous group action claims against solicitors and architects following high-profile unsuccessful off plan property investment schemes with substantial losses. He has recently acted for over 130 claimants in multi-million-pound proceedings which were the subject of an important application to the Court of Appeal (headed by Master of the Rolls, Vos LJ). The appeal concerns the fundamentally important procedure in this field of law of using a single claim form to encapsulate multiple claims, as disputed by the defendant solicitors/appellant. This matter went to the Court of Appeal where the judge ruled in favour of class action claims in a single claim form. David’s team has also acted for a group in cutting-edge High Court proceedings involving a £20 million insurance coverage claim against AIG, which settled recently on confidential terms shortly prior to the November trial. · Commercial Litigation

David O’Brien

Partner in the London commercial dispute resolution team acting in all areas of commercial and general dispute resolution and with a particular interest in commercial contract disputes. He is also a key member of the professional negligence team with considerable expertise in handling professional negligence claims. He has a growing specialism in acting for claimants in high value, multi-party actions against solicitors. · Dispute Resolution

Donald Lambert

Consultant specialising in commercial litigation and arbitration work, including physical commodities and a wide range of real estate disputes. · Litigation

Duncan Taylor

Specialises in and high-net-worth sales and purchases of residential properties within the private wealth sector, particularly for overseas clients. · Residential Property

Elizabeth Carson

Partner with experience in all aspects of family law, and particularly in cases with an international dimension. She often advises clients on complex financial disputes where there are assets in multiple jurisdictions, including offshore trusts. She also represents parents in disputes concerning children, involving issues such as how much time the children should spend with their parents, their health and education, as well as where they should live. She has extensive experience in cases involving the international relocation of children. She works closely with colleagues in the private wealth sector to advise high net worth individuals on all aspects of wealth protection, including cohabitation and nuptial agreements, and financial provision for children. · Family Law

Emma Bryant

Emma is a partner in the firm’s corporate department and is based in the Birmingham office. She advises on a wide range of corporate transactions, including acquisitions and disposals, private equity transactions, group reorganisations and shareholder arrangements, and is recognised for combining a deep technical knowledge with a practical approach to help her clients achieve their goals. With a particular interest in early stage and growth businesses, she has also acted for large corporates, local authorities, universities and property development companies. · Corporate / M&A

Emma Willing

Emma is a partner in the family team with over 15 years of experience. She offers a depth and breadth of expertise in all aspects of family law and has developed particular capabilities in the resolution of complex and high value financial issues on divorce, private children law matters, cohabitation disputes and the drafting of marital and cohabitation agreements. Her extensive international experience sees her draw regularly on her network of international contacts across her caseload. She works for clients from a wide range of backgrounds including entrepreneurs, family business owners, city professionals, celebrities and the independently wealthy. Emma also has extensive expertise in advising in respect to modern family building whether through surrogacy, assisted reproduction, donor conception, co-parenting and adoption (both domestic and international). She has worked on numerous complex surrogacy cases involving overseas jurisdictions and for clients with international connections. As a qualified mediator, she can also assist clients in seeking to resolve issues outside the context of court proceedings. Emma frequently contributes to the legal press and is a member of Resolution. · Family Law

Eugene Wojciechowski

Partner in the employment group based in Reading. Practices all areas of both contentious and non-contentious employment law, including advising clients on TUPE, trade union disputes, employment tribunal litigation, enforcing post-termination restrictive covenants and the negotiation of severance deals. · Employment

Gavin Stenton

Gavin is a dual-qualified solicitor and chartered trade mark attorney, working between Penningtons Manches' Oxford and London offices. He is a trade mark, designs and brand protection specialist, advising brand owners in a wide range of industry sectors including fashion, retail, sport, drinks, education, publishing, IT, biotech and professional services. Gavin handles all aspects of trade mark and design filing, prosecution and enforcement, and is regularly involved in complex, multi-jurisdictional filing programmes and cross-border disputes. His practice incorporates all elements of trade mark and design portfolio management, advice to brand owners on the registerability and availability of their brands, and conflict resolution through opposition, cancellation and/or infringement proceedings. He also advises brand owners on the proper usage and commercial exploitation of their brands as well as on the acquisition of third party brands and related due diligence. · Intellectual Property

Gemma Woodhouse

Partner specialising in employment law both contentious and non-contentious with a keen interest in all aspects of discrimination law. Since qualification, Gemma has been involved with a significant Court of Appeal decision and a number of Tribunal hearings and appeals to the Employment Appeal Tribunals. She also regularly provides corporate support in relation to business transfers and reorganisations and day to day HR advisory support for commercial clients. Gemma has also provided guidance to clients on the implications of TUPE and the terms of commercial outsourcing arrangements. Gemma advises a number of independent schools and academies in relation to their employment law issues and was key in starting the 'Independent Schools HR Forums' operated by the firm. She presents seminars internally and externally on a broad range of employment issues and also contributes articles to both external publications and the firm’s regular employment update. She is described by clients as having “a good tactical approach to dealing with HR issues”, being “very swift with her advice” and an adviser who “ acts in the client’s best interests”. · Employment

George Mingay

George is a partner in the international trade and commodities group in the London office. He is an expert in the resolution of disputes within the commodities sector relating to oil and gas, metals and mining, soft commodities and trade finance. His expertise extends to the resolution of disputes in the English courts and under international arbitration rules – including those of the ICC, UNCITRAL and the LCIA – and trade arbitration rules – including those of FOSFA, GAFTA, the RSA and SAL. He also advises clients on non-contentious, regulatory and compliance issues. George has advised national oil companies, international trading companies and other clients across the supply chain on disputes arising from drilling rig and FPSO contracts, sale and purchase agreements, and commercial and agency contracts. He frequently deals with non-payment, breach of warranty claims, quality and condition issues and many other contentious matters. George spent six months seconded to the in-house legal department of Shell International in London. He regularly presents internationally at industry events on commodities, the law of the sea, oil and gas, and arbitration generally. He has served on numerous occasions as an honorary legal adviser at the Royal Courts of Justice CAB on a pro bono basis. · International Arbitration

Grant Eldred

Grant is a partner in the banking and finance team. He specialises in finance law including bilateral and syndicated secured and unsecured lending, trade finance and banking regulation and compliance. He has particular expertise in advising the London branches of overseas banks on a broad range of operational, regulatory and transactional requirements. He also has specific expertise in ship, yacht and structured finance work. · Banking & Finance

Hannah Gearey

An associate director in Penningtons Manches Cooper’s private client team in Guildford, Hannah advises UK and overseas based clients on a broad range of private client matters including the drafting of wills and tax planning, Court of Protection work, probate and trusts, and has expertise in the establishment and running of charities. She also creates personal injury trusts for vulnerable individuals and acts for the RFU Injured Players Foundation in the creation of trusts for its clients. · Private Client

Hazar El-Chamaa

Hazar is an immigration partner, known for her pragmatic, solution-oriented approach to solving her client’s immigration problems. She advises on the full spectrum of immigration routes, on citizenship, the EU Settlement Scheme and sponsor compliance. Her role as Chair of Trustees of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA) means that she often liaises with senior UKVI officials raising policy and operational issues on behalf of the sector. She heads the firm’s private wealth immigration offering, working alongside colleagues to provide a full-service covering tax, family and real estate to those looking to relocate to the UK with their families. Hazar is recognised for her expertise in the education sector, built over 14 years. She advises on all aspects of compliance, risk management, and restructuring. Her clients include universities, independent schools and large private education providers. She is experienced in providing global immigration solutions to large multinational organisations from a wide range of sectors including retail, sports, entertainment and technology. Fluent in Arabic, she has contacts throughout the Middle East, in particular the UAE, and regularly visits the region. Hazar is a frequent speaker on immigration law. · Immigration

Helen Drayton

Helen is the chief executive of Penningtons Manches Cooper and is responsible for the development and implementation of the firm’s strategy and direction, as well as its day-to-day management, working alongside the strategy, executive and operational boards. Much of the leadership team’s attention is currently focused on integrating the firm behind a shared vision and strategy, which continues to centre around key sectors and niche teams - as well as increasing the offering of the international offices. An additional priority is further understanding of the work the firm does with its clients. By improving on what it does and how it is done, the firm can continue to build on its reputation as a strategic partner delivering high quality, cutting-edge advice to help clients achieve the best real-world outcomes. Helen is a strong supporter of Penningtons Manches Cooper's ambition to be regarded as the most human law firm. She believes that taking a collaborative and caring approach to the work it does – both within teams internally and with clients – is key to achieving its strategic objectives. Accordingly, she personally oversees the continuous development and implementation of the firm's inclusion agenda, which is centred on fostering an environment in which everyone feels valued, motivated and empowered to make the most of their working and personal lives. Prior to taking on the role of chief executive in 2022, Helen, a corporate lawyer, was head of the firm’s business services division and a partner in the corporate team. She has advised a full range of clients on all aspects of company law, specialising in mergers and acquisitions with a particular focus on MBO transactions and property-related disposals and purchases – as well as developing expertise in group reorganisations and demergers. · Corporate / M&A

Hilary Aldred

Partner specialising in all areas of contentious and non-contentious employment, including dealing with all aspects of tribunal work and appeals. Advising on a wide range of HR problems, policies and strategy, including the management of reorganisations and redundancy programmes, as well as having expertise in industrial relations across businesses including trade union matters and collective disputes. Deals with employment-related litigation, including post-termination issues, particularly for clients in the education and technology sectors. · Employment

James Hallas

James is a partner in the projects, development and construction team and co-chair of the firm’s ESG/sustainability sector group. He specialises in non-contentious work. As well as expertise across the full spectrum of construction and development, James has particular knowledge of the renewable energy, sustainability, housing and accommodation and care sectors. He works with clients to achieve commercial, real world outcomes and is experienced in negotiating both standard forms of contract including the JCT, FIDIC, NEC and RIBA suites of documents and bespoke agreements. James is also experienced in drafting and negotiating complex engineering contracts linked to infrastructure and energy generation. James has acted on large-scale, mixed commercial and residential, hotel, university and student accommodation schemes as well as hospital projects and care schemes. · Projects / Development

James Harrison

James is a partner in the commercial dispute resolution team. He is an experienced commercial litigator dealing with corporate dispute resolution, whether by formal court/arbitration proceedings or alternative dispute resolution. He has a particular specialism in director and shareholder disputes, often involving a restructuring element. He also works on a wide range of other disputes including banking, breach of warranty and general contractual issues, spread over broad industry sectors including property, general retail and banking. As a result of his role as chair of the Multilaw Young Lawyers Group, he spends considerable time on international matters. · Litigation

James Mackay

James is an associate director in the real estate investors team in the London office. He has wide-ranging experience in real estate development and investment work in both the commercial and residential sectors, having acted for both family offices and landed estates, through to prominent investment institutions and developers. James also has extensive experience of acting for the public sector, having previously spent a number of years working for and advising numerous social housing providers on a mix of project types, including outright development, s106 purchases, commercial lettings and disposals and dealing with energy centre infrastructure and leasing. His main focus is on institutional investment work, together with commercial and residential development for private and public sector developers. · Real Estate

James McNeilly

Partner in the London real estate team specialising in the acquisition and disposal of investment properties, development work, the property aspects of secured lending, and advising landlords and tenants. He acts for a range of clients including institutional investors, private real estate companies, real estate funds, offshore private trusts, banks, and tenant occupiers. · Real Estate

James Nadin

Partner in the London real estate team specialising in all aspects of non-contentious landlord and tenant law, freehold and leasehold acquisitions and disposals (including portfolio sales), site development and property advice for charities. · Real Estate

James Severn

James is a partner in the London commercial dispute resolution team. He has a broad commercial litigation and dispute resolution practice with a particular focus on shipping, insurance, and personal injury and fatality claims. His clients include ship owners, marine insurers, cruise and ferry operators, and oil companies. James has particular expertise in investigations by the MCA, MAIB and HSE following accidents and collisions and regularly advises on injuries and death at sea or on offshore installations. He has extensive experience in the offshore and energy sectors and regularly acts for shipowners and their insurers in disputes arising from the operation of vessels in and around wind farms and other offshore installations. He advises on the contracts frequently used in the offshore/energy markets with a particular focus on BIMCO contracts. James also advises on salvage and wreck removal. James’ sports practice focuses on football. He advises players, clubs and intermediaries on transfers, image rights, contract negotiations and disciplinary issues at a club and Football Association (FA) level. He also has significant experience of FIFA and CAS claims and advises on the regulatory requirements of the English FA. · Litigation

James Stewart

Described as a ‘guru of international family law’, James Stewart is a fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers (IAFL) and general editor of the definitive publication on comparative international family law, Family Law: A Global Guide (the ‘Blue Book’). James shines in difficult, often international, cases that need strategic vision, diligent execution and a motivated, able team. With a focus on complex family disputes, marital agreements and cases with an international dimension, including claims for financial relief following overseas divorces (Part III), James has become the family lawyer of choice for family offices, trustees and others who find themselves embroiled in complex English divorce and family proceedings. A leading QC describes James as ‘undoubtedly one of the leaders in family law globally’. In September 2020, James was appointed Visiting Professor of Law at Ulster University and also serves on the Consultation Board for Practical Law – Family. James continues to chair the annual Legal Dinner in aid of the leading peacebuilding charity, Co-operation Ireland. Dual-qualified in England & Wales and Northern Ireland, James is also a family arbitrator and a collaborative family lawyer. · Family / Divorce

James Went

Corporate lawyer specialising in advising life sciences and technology companies. His transactional work includes acquisitions and disposals, often with an international element; university spin-outs; venture capital funding transactions; joint ventures; corporate restructuring and re-organisations. He works with companies at all stages of their life cycle and many clients are spin-outs from the University of Oxford, Imperial College London, and other universities and technology transfer organisations, who he works with on a long-term basis. · Corporate / M&A

James d’Aquino

James is a partner in the private client team in the London office advising on a broad range of domestic and international issues. He acts for high net worth individuals, families, trustees, banks and entrepreneurs on wills, trusts, and succession planning. He also advises on UK and international tax issues, owner-managed business succession planning, administration of estates and powers of attorney. He has extensive experience in advising clients on regularising their UK tax affairs, particularly in relation to the Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility and the application of the Swiss-UK Tax Cooperation Agreement. James features in the Eprivateclient 'Top 35 Under 35' list 2015 for young private client practitioners. He has had several articles published in well-regarded private client journals including the Trusts and Estates Law Journal and Private Client Practitioner. · Private Client

Jane Mitchell

Head of the family law team in Oxford, specialising in family law, particularly in more complex financial cases and difficult disputes concerning arrangements for children. Accorded top ranking in both Chambers UK and The Legal 500 for many years. A Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers, one of only a relatively small number of UK family law specialists outside London who are members. · Family