Lawyers in England

Mike Bell

Mike Bell is a UK-based partner specialising in private wealth management and tax planning for high-net-worth clients. He studied Law and American Studies at Keele University before completing the LPC at The College of Law, Chester. Mike trained as a solicitor at a medium-sized law firm in Kent, ran his own law firm for several years, and moved to a London law firm in 2010. Mike has a niche practice advising high-net-worth non-domiciled clients, primarily from the Middle East and Far East, on structuring UK property acquisitions to mitigate UK taxes. He provides UK tax and estate planning advice to non-domiciled clients, helping them determine the best structures to protect their wealth. Additionally, Mike works closely with high-net-worth UK-domiciled clients, particularly Mayfair and City professionals, to ensure their estates are safeguarded from inheritance tax and that clear, professional plans are in place to manage their wealth effectively for future generations. Mike often collaborates with the firm’s Real Estate Teams, advising clients on structuring their property purchases. London’s property market continues to be viewed as safe, stable, and offering potential for strong capital growth. Whether a client is acquiring a Mayfair hotel, a two-bedroom apartment in Canary Wharf, or an eight-bedroom townhouse on High Street Kensington, Mike ensures both UK and international buyers receive tailored, detailed advice on owning these assets.

Druces LLP

Mike Bird

Mike Bird is the clinical negligence partner based in Truro, covering Cornwall. He has over 20 years' experience of claims involving complex medical and legal issues on behalf of claimants, particularly children with acquired brain injuries, but advises on cases of all types. He led the Group Action against Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (re Mr K R Jones, 204 claimants). He also is Assistant Coroner for West Midlands and represents families at inquests in fatal claims. He regularly appears in local media commenting on legal issues. Mike is an AvMA Accredited specialist panel member (over 15 years), an APIL Senior Litigator, and an Assessor for APIL's Specialist Clinical Negligence Panel. https://www.enablelaw.com/team/mike-bird/

Foot Anstey

Mike Brookes

Mike is a partner at Lee & Thompson and head of the firm’s Defamation & Privacy group. He is also a key member of the firm’s Dispute Resolution group. Mike joined Lee & Thompson in 1998 and played a major role in establishing the firm’s reputation for quality dispute resolution, handling the full range of copyright and contractual disputes for clients within the creative industries of music, film, television and sport, and ranging from artists and actors to record labels and production companies. He was also instrumental in helping to protect the reputation of some of the firm’s highest profile clients. Various battles with the tabloid press were fought and won over the years for well-known names, such as One Direction and its members, Jude Law, Eddie Redmayne, Frankie Boyle, Paul Hollywood, Christopher Eccleston and Charlotte Church. He has also acted for a number of prominent figures in industry and politics, even royalty. Building on his pre-publication content clearance work for the firm's well-established film and television production client base, Mike has in recent years built up an enviable client roster of media defendants, such that his highly regarded practice is now genuinely a mixed one. He is regularly instructed to defend insured claims by all three of the main Errors and Omissions insurers, and represents two national broadcasters in this area, as well as a host of successful film and television production companies. Also fully immersed in the film and television world, Mike has a significant copyright and defamation clearance practice acting for producer clients on major feature films and television productions, including the Oasis documentary 'Supersonic', 'The Theory of Everything' and 'The Darkest Hour' for Working Title; and 'Broadchurch' for Kudos.

Lee & Thompson LLP

Mike Burns

Mike trained with Withers and on qualification in 1993 joined specialist London shipping firm More Fisher Brown. Mike joined Weightmans as a partner in May 2006. Mike’s expertise includes the carriage of goods by sea, charterparty and bill of lading claims, hull and P& insurance, cargo recoveries, freight liability, multimodal transit, CMR and yacht claims. Mike has a related non-contentious practice including vessel sale and purchase and drafting contracts of carriage. Mike is ranked in The Legal 500 2015 as a 'Leading Individual'.

Weightmans LLP

Mike Busby

Mike heads the real estate division, with overall responsibility for its strategic direction, and is a member of the firm's strategy board. He specialises in: strategic land advice for large landowners and mid-tier residential developers, including advising on promotion agreements, options and conditional contracts; portfolio acquisitions and disposals for high net worths and family offices; retail and leisure, including advising numerous golf course owners and operators; advising on hotel sales and purchases; advising national restaurant operators and retailers on their English portfolio; advising care home developments; and high value landlord and tenant work.

Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP

Mike Cain

Mike is a highly experienced employment partner and litigator with over 16 years of practice in senior exits and complex claims arising from termination of employment and workplace discrimination. Mike has developed a strong reputation for advising and representing senior executives, particularly those in FCA-regulated roles within the financial sector, as well as professionals in the tech, legal, academic, advertising, and media industries. He also has very extensive experience in advising and representing individual police officers, NHS staff, and those working in local and national government roles. Beyond individual representation, Mike has had significant experience of collective employment disputes and matters involving the role of trade unions, having acted in key collective redundancy litigation in the Court of Appeal and CJEU. He has also acted in a respondent capacity defending claims in the Employment Tribunal for certain trade unions and other organisations. He has latterly overseen complex group actions involving holiday pay enforcement and pension rights, securing substantial outcomes for thousands of affected employees.

Keystone Law

Mike Clifford

Mike is experienced in acting for major corporates, private companies, and investors on their M&A, joint venture, due diligence and re-organisation activity across a variety of sectors including media and advertising, defence, food, catering, health and care. Mike has particular experience in providing corporate and commercial legal services to private, public and 'third' sector organisations in the healthcare and care industries. Mike leads our Private Health and Care Practice, providing market-leading legal services to owners, operators, and investors in businesses operating in the health and care sectors. Mike also leads the firm’s work with national and international law firms and equity houses on investments in or including UK health and care businesses. Our care team acts for, among others, public and private providers of acute care, specialist diagnostics, community care as well as General Practitioners, Dentists, Pharmacists and other providers of Primary Care services. In addition, it acts for providers of care such as including UK based health and care businesses and assets. Notable projects include: Leading for Top 5 Private Acute Hospital Group in relation to a number of corporate acquisitions and joint ventures including a novel shares acquisition and related establishment of a strategic joint venture oncology services business; Leading teams advising various private equity purchasers of healthcare businesses including Plasma Resources UK Limited, Independent Clinical Services Group Limited, Cygnet Healthcare and Oasis Dental. Acting for US based care business on its £32m earnout acquisition of leading UK care services publisher and related digital services provider Advising NHS Trusts/FTs in connection with various projects including: a joint venture with Alliance Medical re new PET/CT and MRI Services and construction of dedicated facilities; long term commercial joint venture for the provision of diagnostic services to a private provider and related provision of premises; establishment with a private provider of an outpatient diagnostics facility and co-located minor surgery facilities.

Weightmans LLP

Mike Devlin

Partner

Hall Brown Family Law

Mike Fox

Consultant Solicitor - Property

Slater Heelis (Part of Lawfront)

Mike Gilbert

Mike is an IP lawyer who advises clients in a wide variety of business sectors on issues including litigation and dispute resolution, IP strategy and risk limitation, due diligence projects and commercial and licensing transactions involving IP. His primary focus and expertise, however, lies in life sciences patent litigation where he is considered to be one of the UK’s leading practitioners. He has represented some of the world’s leading biopharmaceutical corporations in complex patent and technical disputes including Genentech, Roche, AstraZeneca, MedImmune, Daiichi Sankyo, Pfizer, AbbVie and Chugai to name but a few. He regularly advises those clients on SPC and paediatric extension matters, a field in which he is considered to be a particular expert. He has been responsible for some of the most important life sciences patent cases with a special focus on biotech and antibody and large molecule cases. He regularly advises on data and marketing exclusivity matters and orphan drug designations. Within patent litigation, Mike has acted for and advised clients in actions in the Patents Court of the High Court, the Court of Appeal and on several petitions to the Supreme Court. He has also acted for SME client in their disputes in IPEC. Mike has significant experience of acting for clients involved in multi-jurisdictional technical disputes working as part of and coordinating integrated teams of IP specialists spanning many countries. He is actively involved in defending patent, SPC and data and marketing exclusivity rights around Europe for his clients. Mike is well known for his strategic and creative vision and is consistently recommended in the IAM Patent 1000 guide, which describes him as “always at the top of the pile, especially for pharmaceutical matters”: “personable, approachable and user-friendly, he is a tenacious litigator able to take an objective view of a case at all times.” He is listed as a ‘patent leader’ by World IP Review and as an ‘IP Star' by Managing Intellectual Property. Mike is also listed by Legal 500, and recognised as an expert by Who’s Who Legal, which describe him as an “outstanding patent litigator” and say that his “glittering biotechnology practice wins him a position in the gold tier”. He is also recognised as the number one European thought leader by Who’s Who Life Sciences 2018, who describe Mike as follows:- “the “outstanding” Mike Gilbert ranks among the very elite of practitioners in our research, and is widely considered the “go-to practitioner for SPC matters in the life sciences sector". Example Cases Aontec v Smartrac Affymetrix v Illumina Tercica v Insmed MSD v Wyeth MSD v Pfizer GSK v Wyeth Regeneron and Teva v Rinat MedImmune v Celltech MedImmune v Novartis Genentech v Hospira Lilly v Genentech Regenernon and Bayer v Genentech Takeda v Roche UCB v Chugai Astex v AstraZeneca Whitserve v CPA Jeyes v Henkel Daiichi Sankyo v KRKA and TAD Pharma Novamedix v Fox & Gardner

Marks & Clerk

Mike Gilmour

Partner and office head of insolvency department. Specialising in corporate and personal insolvency acting for funders, insolvency practitioners and corporates.

Freeths LLP

Mike Grant

Mike Grant has been recognised for many years in the leading directories for his expertise in defending claims against construction professionals , mediation and insurance coverage work. He has been described as "technically astute", "commercial", "robust enough to deal with anything thrown at him" and as the "go to" expert for defending claims against engineers by The Lawyer Magazine. Chambers 2017 said “Mike Grant knows the insurance market inside and out” He featured in The Lawyer Magazine’s Hot 100 for 2014. He has dealt with many complex and high profile cases and is experienced in arbitration and mediation. He has resolved claims worth in excess of £800m by means of mediation. He speaks regularly to professionals and professional bodies about insurance and risk issues. He has been involved with, and has a particular interest in, the development and delivery of consultancy services.

Weightmans LLP

Mike Herbert

Mike advises clients on a wide range of corporate, financing and commercial matters in the sports and entertainment sectors. He has a particular focus on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, investment transactions and receivables financing. Mike also acts for clients in the sports industry on corporate governance issues and sponsorship arrangements. Recent work highlights include advising: Blue Heaven Holdings on an agreement to sell its majority shareholding in Everton Football Club to The Friedkin Group. The Founders of StatsBomb, a global sports data and analytics business, on the sale of the company to Hudl. The FA on the transfer of its ownership and operation of the women’s professional game. Atairos on acquiring a minority stake in the holding vehicle of Aston Villa. Michele Kang on the creation of the world’s first women’s football multi-club ownership platform. Thierry Henry and Cesc Fabregas on their equity arrangements in Como 1907. Chelsea FC on its acquisition for £4.25 billion by the Boehly/Clearlake consortium. Elliott Advisors on the sale of AC Milan to Redbird Capital Partners. Portfolio companies of Bruin Capital (Two Circles and TGI Sport) on their respective acquisitions of TRM Partners and ISG. The Welsh Rugby Union on its Professional Rugby Agreement with the regional teams. A number of financial institutions on the purchase of transfer fee receivables in European football. He also works with high-growth technology companies as part of the Northridge TRACK initiative and has particular experience acting for athlete investors participating in early-stage fundraising rounds.

Northridge Law LLP

Mike Hibberd

Mike is an employment and data privacy law expert advising both organisations and senior individuals on a wide range of human resources and related issues.

Doyle Clayton

Mike Jackson

Browne Jacobson LLP

Mike Jennings

Partner Mike Jennings leads AAThornton’s highly rated Electrical Patents group. He specialises in patent protection, patent oppositions and IP strategy advice for a range of technologies including areas of physics, electrical engineering and computer-related inventions. Mike has more than 20 years' experience handling patent drafting and prosecution of European, UK and PCT patent applications in areas such as computer systems, storage and software including computer modelling and simulation, automated controls, electromagnetic and optical sensing technologies for locating hydrocarbons and for detecting gases, and telecommunications. Mike handles a substantial opposition case load and has an enviable success rate in EPO oppositions and appeals thanks to commitment and proactivity.Mike also advises on software patentability and infringement and validity of patents. Mike's clients include multinational corporations and leading companies in the UK and many other countries, including clients in the oil and gas industry, the telecommunications sector, engineering, gas detection, consumer electronics and computing.

Venner Shipley LLP

Mike Lane

Partner; Mike is Head of our Tax practice. He has extensive experience advising domestic and international clients on a wide range of transactions, including public and private M&A, debt and equity capital markets transactions, group reorganisations and structured finance, as well as on contentious matters, such as diverted profits tax and transfer pricing disputes, unallowable purpose challenges and State aid investigations.

Slaughter and May

Mike Lockton

Mike is a Principal Associate who specialises in Asset-Based Lending based in our London office. Following qualification into Hammonds' (now Squire Patton Boggs) ABL Litigation team in 2009, Mike has been advising clients across the invoice finance and alternative lending sectors ever since, most recently having headed up Francis Wilks and Jones' Banking and Finance offering, before joining Shoosmiths' expanding team in March 2023. The instructions Mike receives vary broadly from standard commercial debt recoveries to guarantor actions to fraud-based claims in both the civil and insolvency courts. Although Mike works mainly on contentious issues, he also advises his client base on various operational aspects of their facilities where they seek to mitigate risk, including but not limited to carrying out supply contract reviews and assisting with the variation of facility and security documentation. In addition, as a lot of his instructions are linked to insolvency events, Mike is well-known amongst a number of the key insolvency practitioner contacts in the ABL industry. Mike's expertise includes: advising financiers on enforcement action against clients or former clients and any associated guarantors, warrantors and / or indemnifiers. undertaking large scale collect-outs of sales ledgers on behalf of either financiers or insolvent businesses. advising on and dealing with complex commercial debt recovery claims pursuant to supply contracts - either B2B or on behalf of invoice financiers. advising on and preparing bespoke facility and security documentation to assist with the management of risk in relation to ongoing facilities, including supply contract reviews and facility variations, including, where necessary advising upon any managed "exit plan" for distressed or defaulting businesses. Specialist areas include: asset based lending, invoice finance, fraud, commercial litigation, trade finance, supply chain finance, insolvency and restructuring and debt recovery.

Shoosmiths LLP

Mike Muston

Mike is a Partner in RWK Goodman’s dedicated Contested Wills, Trusts & Inheritance Disputes team. Mike has helped many clients with issues relating to Will disputes, claims for financial provision, disputes between executors and disputes between attorneys in the Court of Protection. He is focused on providing practical solutions to help clients through difficult situations. Mike is ranked as an ‘Up and Coming Partner’ by the Chambers High Net Worth Guide and is also recommended by the Legal 500. A barrister states: “He is extremely good and is building up a formidable practice.” A client says: “He is understanding and easy to communicate with, and I feel assured he will do his utmost for us.” Chambers High New Worth Guide “Mike Muston is excellent with clients and able to quickly get to the heart of any dispute.” Legal 500 Mike’s experience includes: Challenges to the validity of Wills, including issues of capacity, undue Influence, execution, lack of knowledge and approval Court of Protection disputes Claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 Proprietary Estoppel and Constructive Trusts Acting for charities in defending inheritance disputes Disputes over the administration of estates Mike has also contributed articles to the well renowned Trusts & Estates Law and Tax Journal.

RWK Goodman

Mike Newham

Mike is a solicitor advocate with extensive experience advising insurers on coverage issues arising under a wide range of policies, including D&O, FI, crime and civil liability, investment management, trustee liability, and PI. His practice focuses on advising London market non-marine insurers on complex coverage issues. He also has significant experience of defending claims and regulatory investigations against professionals.

RPC

Mike Parker

Mike has been the firm's Managing Partner since November 2014 and has overall responsibility for the business. He works closely with the other members of the management team to ensure that clients receive a consistently high standard of service and that our lawyers and other staff are properly supported. His leadership style is founded on the principle that great teamwork is the key to success. Mike's specialism is litigation and dispute resolution and he advises individuals as well as businesses on a wide range of issues. He has particular expertise in property cases concerning title, boundaries and rights of way. Mike’s practice also covers professional negligence and high value company/commercial disputes including breach of contract, share sales and injunctions. He is recommended by The Legal 500 2016 for commercial litigation. Mike has been listed in The Lawyer's Hot 100 2023. This respected annual list from leading legal magazine The Lawyer celebrates pioneering and creative lawyers across the entire profession in the UK. The Lawyer says: "Wilsons managing partner Mike Parker is a pragmatic law firm leader whose mantra is “control the controllables”. In other words, while the market continues to be buffeted by global economic headwinds and turmoil, Parker sees his role as making sure the individuals and teams at his Salisbury stalwart firm are as motivated, engaged and inspired as possible."

Wilsons

Mike Plews

Solicitor Mike advises on EPC contracts, building contracts, professional appointments, collateral warranties, bonds, guarantees, development agreements and other ancillary documentation relating to engineering, construction, energy and secured lending. He also advises clients in relation to dispute avoidance strategies and a broad range of dispute resolution techniques. Mike leads the Sheffield and Leeds construction teams at Irwin Mitchell.

Irwin Mitchell

Mike Rainford

Partner specialising in financial crime and regulatory matters for over 35 years. He has dealt successfully with a number of high profile cases. His expertise are wide ranging and include cases involving: Company fraud Carousel fraud Boiler room fraud Investment share dealing Taxation fraud. Mike’s Regulatory experience also encompasses many areas including Trading Standards, environmental, health and safety, tax investigation, business innovation and skills investigations, insolvency service investigations, FCA investigations re banks, accountants and IFAs, cyber crime including theft of intellectual property and hacking. Chambers and Partners 2016 say Mike "regularly acts in major investigations led by leading enforcement agencies including the BIS, CBI and FCA. He specialises in a number of areas including tax fraud, commercial fraud and POCA related work.

JMW Solicitors LLP

Mike Scanlan

Consultant

Wordley Partnership