Avocats – England

Michael Anderson

Michael is a Solicitor in both Dispute Resolution and Commercial and IP.

Lee Bolton Monier-Williams

Michael Anderson

I advise companies, LLPs and senior executives on all aspects of employment and partnership law, with a focus on the financial and professional services sectors. My work ranges from negotiating complex contracts to defending high-value claims in the Employment Tribunal. I am particularly interested in High Court litigation and arbitrations. I frequently advise clients on restrictive covenants, confidential information, bonus claims and team moves, often across several jurisdictions. My work covers the full range of contentious and non-contentious employment and partnership advice. My financial services clients include hedge funds, banks, brokers, insurance intermediaries and HFT firms. I am a member of the Employment Lawyers Association, sitting on its Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution Working Group.

Lewis Silkin

Michael Anderson

Michael has been a partner at JHA since its inception. He has 25 years of litigation experience, of which approximately 20 years has been spent specialising in tax-related disputes. He handles complex, high-value enquiries and investigations for individuals and large corporates, and has experience running litigation at all levels of the United Kingdom’s Tax Tribunals, domestic courts and European Courts. Much of Michael’s work involves a foreign element and he has developed excellent contacts in many offshore jurisdictions. He also handles criminal investigations.

Joseph Hage Aaronson & Bremen LLP

Michael Armstrong

Michael is a Partner in the Dispute Resolution Department. He specialises in pursuing and defending complex commercial disputes with a particular focus on fraud and insolvency litigation, often with an international focus. He is experienced in all aspects of injunctive relief and asset recovery. Michael acts for both corporations and individuals in a wide range of business sectors. He has experience acting both for and against financial institutions and insolvency practitioners. This experience gives him a unique insight into how best to protect his clients.

Mishcon de Reya LLP

Michael Armstrong

Counsel

Forsters LLP

Michael Armstrong

Senior Associate

Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP

Michael Arnold

Consultant

Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP

Michael Aubrey

Michael leads the firm’s national agriculture sector. His areas of specialism cover the acquisition and disposal of estates and farms, farm tenancies, joint ventures, development and promotion agreements, partnership agreements, contracting agreements. Recent examples of Michael’s work include advising a consortium of landowners in relation to the promotion of 400 acres of land for development, advising an estate on the restructuring of its agricultural tenancies so as to enhance the ability to achieve 100% IHT relief, restructuring the agricultural tenancies on an estate prior to sale of the estate and advising on the termination of a farming partnership.

Mills & Reeve LLP

Michael Axe

Michael Axe is a Partner in the Dispute Resolution and Life Sciences team based in Maidenhead. Michael is a senior litigator with 20 years’ experience of resolving Commercial Disputes for his clients, with particular expertise in Professional Negligence claims, Franchising disputes, Intellectual Property disputes & Brand Protection, Director & Shareholder disputes, contentious Tax matters, Insurance disputes and Commercial Agency disputes. His clients range from multinational corporations, PLCs and SMEs to high net-worth individuals involved in national and international commercial disputes. Michael is highly experienced in court proceedings and methods of alternative dispute resolution including mediation and various forms of arbitration. He has particular experience in cross-border contractual issues and international intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and enforcement. Commercial Disputes Experience Michael has a broad commercial practice with a number of specialisms. He acts in professional negligence claims, intellectual property disputes (including passing off claims), franchise disputes (on behalf of both franchisors and franchisees), tax disputes (against HMRC, UK Border Force and various other authorities), commercial agency disputes and a wide variety of insurance disputes. Michael is also regularly instructed in company disputes including shareholder claims and applications for the removal of company directors.

Gardner Leader LLP

Michael Balmer

Partner - Regulatory Core

Weightmans LLP

Michael Barlow

Advises both public and private sector clients on all aspects of UK and EU environmental law. Michael has particular experience in issues relating to water law and leads the firm’s cross-departmental Water sector team. He has significant experience of contentious work (both criminal and civil) and regulatory compliance. He also chairs the cross-firm ESG client services team.

Burges Salmon LLP

Michael Barrett

Michael is dual-qualified as a Chartered (UK) and European Trade Mark Attorney and as a solicitor. He advises brand owners on all aspects of trade mark protection and registration, including portfolio management, clearance searching, trade mark prosecution, opposition, cancellation, revocation, licensing, assignment, infringement and the law of unregistered trade marks/passing-off. He has an honours degree in English from Cambridge and subsequently obtained a Masters degree in English Renaissance Literature from Liverpool. He worked for five years for another firm of Patent and Trade Mark agents before joining Marks & Clerk LLP in August 2017. Michael now works with a number of high profile clients in different industries including manufacturing and food and beverage. He also supports the firm's creative industries group and has particular expertise in assisting clients with their brand strategies in this field.

Marks & Clerk

Michael Beadsworth

Michael joined Gardner Leader in 2022 having previously been a partner in a Thames Valley firm of solicitors for many years and having worked as an in-house lawyer for a major UK charity. Michael is a specialist Real Estate Lawyer focused on delivering tailored advice to meet clients’ needs and achievable outcomes. He has well over thirty years of experience in commercial property including options, promotion agreements, land purchases and site set ups, leases, finance agreements and public houses

Gardner Leader LLP

Michael Bennett

Partner

Hill Dickinson LLP

Michael Bennett

Michael is a construction lawyer who has acted for employers, contractors, sub-contractors and consultants. He has significant experience of adjudication, arbitration and litigation. His approach is typified by focusing early on the most likely outcomes of any dispute and advising on how to achieve the best result for the client, including via early settlement. His recent experience includes advising: A large international engineering consultancy on an arbitration and appeal in relation to a marine engineering project. A contractor on a valuations dispute relating to a power station in the north of England. A university in the north-west of England during a number of adjudications, relating to a new science teaching laboratory. A contractor in relation to a dispute with an insolvent sub-contractor over the valuation of works. A local authority on 3 adjudications relating to an underbridge on the west coast mainline. A large contractor on a building contract relating to a residential development in the South-West of England.

Shoosmiths LLP

Michael Birchall

Partner

Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP

Michael Blakey

Michael is a partner in our property and construction team based in Manchester. He is also the anti-money laundering officer for the LLP. With over 35 years' experience handling high-value commercial property investment work, Michael has been involved in some of the largest transactions in Manchester. These include: £100 million sale of the Arndale Centre Redevelopment of the Marks and Spencers store Acquisitions and sale of Lee House Churchgate House The Zenith Building and; many other multi-million pound sales and purchases, particularly office buildings in the City of Manchester. Michael acts principally for land owners and developers, including UPS Limited, P&O Shopping Centres Limited, The Wrather Group and various Friendly Societies and numerous private investors in the North West. His portfolio includes a number of covered shopping centres, industrial parks and retail parks.

Hill Dickinson LLP

Michael Boyd

Bevan Brittan LLP

Michael Briggs

Michael is an experienced, emotionally intelligent and strategic Partner. He provides pragmatic, commercial and results-driven advice to a wide range of local and national clients on the whole spectrum of human resources and employment law. At all times Michael works in absolute partnership with his HR and senior management client teams. He is a 'go-to' trusted adviser and gets the job done. He has significant experience in respect of complex and sensitive senior and/or group exits, redundancies and restructures; difficult absence and performance issues; whistleblowing matters; the gig economy, and also in relation to HR related data protection (including extensive data subject access requests). He also sites with the National Employment Team's IR35, Data Protection and Financial Services sub-groups. Michael also has a particular interest in defending Employment Tribunal claims of all types and managing client relationships for varying size employers. He has received continued instruction from a client within the tyre and vehicle service industry for in excess of 15 years. Work of note includes: • the successful defence in the Employment Tribunal to a complaint of unfair dismissal brought against a client in the service industry (Michael conducts his own advocacy in the Employment Tribunal and has successfully represented a number of clients at Preliminary Hearings and full Tribunal Hearings); • the beneficial conclusion to lengthy settlement negotiations on behalf of a client who was defending claims of automatic unfair dismissal, whistleblowing and breach of contract; • the successful conclusion and defence to claims of race discrimination and breaches of the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 following a multi-day hearing; and • dealing with litigation within both the Employment Tribunal and the High Court in response to claims of constructive unfair dismissal and breaches of post termination restrictions.

Shoosmiths LLP

Michael Brotherton

Michael is a Partner and specialises in all areas of Education Law, he has also built up an enviable reputation dealing with the more contentious aspects of school life including procedural issues, admissions, exclusions, parental complaints, and Equality Act claims. Michael’s other skills include advising on many academy conversions, from single academy projects to multi academy conversion projects; advising on safeguarding issues, abuse allegations, policy drafting, general governance, best practice and whole school issues.

Stone King LLP

Michael Brown

Partner in the commercial dispute resolution team advising on a wide variety of financial services and complex commercial disputes as well as on regulatory investigations, enforcement actions, and civil fraud claims. He has conducted group litigation for shareholder and investor claimants, and acted in international arbitrations and litigation in a number of high profile cases. His clients include funds, bondholders, investors and investor groups, banks and other financial institutions, high net worth individuals and corporates. Recent claims have involved contracts for difference (CfD), financial spread betting and exchange traded funds (ETF). He is also a solicitor advocate.

Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP

Michael Brown

Partner; specialises in property development (commercial and residential), commercial property investment (purchasers, sellers, landlords and tenants), energy and infrastructure projects (developers and landowners), railways and insolvency aspects of property.

Womble Bond Dickinson (UK) LLP

Michael Browne

Michael advises on the enforcement and exploitation of all forms of intellectual property, as well as competition law issues which frequently arise in IP matters. “IP is the driving force behind today’s economy. I help clients to make the most of their IP by putting in place the right agreements to get their products and services to market on the right terms, as well as defending their rights when competitors step over the line. I have more than a decade of experience working with clients from a range of IP-rich industries including fashion, technology, computer games and sports, to name a few. My transactional IP work often has an international flavour, and I have particular experience in helping clients to establish international distribution networks and franchise operations. Where a dispute cannot be avoided, I am able to draw on considerable litigation experience from cases I have undertaken across the English and EU IP courts and registries, as well as my involvement in cross-border arbitrations and mediations, to identify the right strategy for a given scenario and commercial objective. IP is a constantly evolving field and I enjoy contributing to the development of the law in this area through my involvement in organisations such as UNION-IP (for which I am currently the GB Group Council member and Honorary Secretary), the Competition Law Association (of which I was the National Reporter General for several years) and CIPA. I also enjoy helping to train the next generation of IP lawyers in my role as a visiting lecturer on the Oxford University Post Graduate Diploma in Intellectual Law and Practice, where I teach IP Litigation and design law.”

Wiggin LLP

Michael Burd

Having finished my stint as Chair of the firm, I have returned to what I love: serving clients. In my practice I advise on many aspects of employment and partnership law, with a particular focus on the resolution of high level disputes (including through mediation and arbitration), senior level departures, boardroom issues, business transfers and restructuring. Much of my work has an international element to it, and I often work closely with colleagues in other jurisdictions to navigate cross-border matters. I sit on the Executive Committee of Ius Laboris, the global alliance of human resources law firms of which we are UK member. I was born and raised in New York State, but came to the UK in 1978 to study for a year and, basically, stayed on. Outside of work you may find me enjoying good food and wine, hiking or making music (possibly all at the same time). I am a member of Employment Lawyers Association; Association of Partnership Practitioners; European Employment Lawyers Association; Board & Executive Committee of Ius Laboris; International Bar Association; and XBHR.

Lewis Silkin