Mishcon de Reya has today announced that 19 individuals have been promoted to Junior Equity Partner or Equity Partner in its latest round of promotions.
Commenting on the news, Managing Partner James Libson said: "It is hugely exciting to welcome these new additions to our leadership team. Promotion rounds are the culmination of years of effort, and it is always so energising to see what fantastic talent we have in the firm. It is also fascinating to see how the skillsets and ambitions of those promoted over the years adapt to reflect the changes in the world, our profession and the way in which we look after our clients.”
The Partner promotions are:
Equity Partners
Oliver Felton
Oli is a member of the Dispute Resolution department. He is the Co-Lead for Disability within the firm's Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, as well as for the firm's Wellbeing Programme and is heavily involved in the firm's recruitment of trainee solicitors. With over a decade of experience in advising on complex, multi-jurisdictional, and high value disputes, Oli focuses in particular on fraud and cross-border injunctions.
Oli Gepfert
Oli is a part of the Fraud Group. His work focuses on complex, high value, cross-border disputes. He specialises in international asset tracing claims: using injunctions to locate, freeze and recover assets worldwide. Oli’s cases frequently involve allegations of fraud and dishonesty against opponents who have dissipated funds, mislead creditors, falsified records or unlawfully concealed property.
Kathryn Hodgson
Kathryn is a member of the Real Estate department and specialises in commercial property. She has a wide range of experience including acquisitions and disposals of investment property, financing and redevelopment work. She also has extensive experience of asset management matters for both landlords and tenants of office, industrial and retail premises.
Simon Leaf
Simon is a Sports and Technology Partner and leader of the firm's Sports Group. Simon specialises in advising clients (ranging from fast-growth start-ups to internationally listed companies, as well as governing bodies, major clubs, sponsors, intermediaries and athletes) on IP, GDPR, regulatory and commercial law-related issues. He regularly works on significant broadcasting matters, image/digital rights agreements, sponsorship arrangements and international transfers.
Richard Legge
Richard is Head of the eDiscovery team at Mishcon de Reya and also runs the firm's standalone eDiscovery business, MDR Discover. He is one of a small number of Relativity Certified Administrators (RCA) working within UK law firms and has extensive experience in running complex disclosure exercises for a broad range of clients. Richard has managed a number of predictive coding exercises resulting in significant cost savings on document review exercises and has helped develop additional tools to leverage technology in the dispute resolution process.
Mark Reading
Mark is in the firm's Real Estate Dispute Resolution group, practicing in all areas of commercial and residential property law. He has extensive Court experience at High Court and County Court level, both at trial and in relation to interim applications. In addition to representing clients in live proceedings, Mark also provides strategic advice on a range of property management related matters.
Naomi Simpson
Naomi sits within the Fraud and Dispute Resolution department. She is a commercial litigator with wide ranging experience in multi-jurisdictional fraud, banking and general commercial disputes. Naomi manages complex and high value litigation, internal investigations and international arbitrations. She has had particular experience working with clients from the CIS region and has recently returned to London after practicing in the United Arab Emirates for two years.
Junior Equity Partners
Stephanie Balsys
Stephanie is a member of the Mishcon Private team. She represents individual and corporate clients involved in both business and personal disputes before the English High Court, in international commercial arbitration (including under LCIA, ICC and UNCITRAL rules) and in other forms of alternative dispute resolution. Stephanie has extensive experience in matters connected to Ukraine and the CIS.
Rebecca Belgrave
Rebecca is a member of Dispute Resolution department. She specialises in high value, complex and cross-border commercial disputes with a focus on fraud and asset-tracing. Rebecca has significant experience of worldwide freezing orders, search orders, delivery up orders and other asset recovery techniques.
Sheena Cassidy Hope
Sheena is in the Family department, as part of Mishcon Private. She provides training and technical support to the department and acts as in house counsel. She has significant experience in complex financial remedy cases, private law Children Act applications, nuptial agreements and cohabitant disputes. Sheena has further experience in cases in which there are concurrent investigations under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Sheena has represented private individuals, receivers and government agencies.
Hazel Chambers
Hazel is a senior litigator within the Commercial Litigation team. She works on high value, complex litigation, involving claims for breach of contract, fraudulent misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty and negligence. She has particular expertise in acting for Claimants in group litigation, but also acts for Defendants. Her work can be multi-jurisdictional and she therefore liaises with other teams across the Firm to co-ordinate global strategy.
Shona Coffer
Shona is a part of Mishcon Private. She is experienced in pursuing and defending complex, high value and multi-jurisdictional claims, which often involve alleged breaches of fiduciary duty, secret commissions, bribes, dishonest assistance and the diversion of business opportunities. Her work often involves seeking or resisting injunctions.
Barry Coffey
Barry is part of the Dispute Resolution group. He acts for high-net worth individuals, governments, insolvency practitioners and large companies. Barry litigates high value commercial disputes, obtains injunctive relief and undertakes investigations to identify whether his clients have been the victims of fraud.
Michael Frost
Michael is a litigator in Mishcon Private advising UK and international individuals, companies and charities. Michael specialises in reputation protection, advising on defamation, breach of confidence, invasion of privacy, harassment and data issues. He is also an experienced commercial litigator with broad advisory and trial experience in complex commercial disputes. Michael regularly trains journalists, PR consultants and other professional advisors in relation to publication concerns.
Robert Lewis
Robert is in the Employment department and Head of the Firm's Education Group. He advises clients on a wide range of employment-related matters such as discrimination, whistleblowing, trade union relations, restrictive covenants and day-to-day HR issues. Robert also advises educational institutions and individuals on crisis management, safeguarding, complaints, exclusions, academic freedom and discrimination.
Phoebe McLarty
Phoebe is part of the Construction Group in Real Estate. She has extensive transactional experience advising on non-contentious construction matters across the real estate, mining, water, waste, gaming and public health sectors on both domestic and international projects. Phoebe helps clients mitigate interface risk in complex multi-contract projects, for both development and high-profile investment transactions.
James Paterson
James is in the Corporate Department. He focuses on private equity transactions with extensive experience acting for management teams and owner/founder-managers, as well as private equity institutions and investee companies. James also provides general advisory and transactional services to corporate businesses and entrepreneurs, with his practice covering a variety of sectors including financial services, recruitment, retail and oil and gas.
Laura Penny
Laura is part of the firm's Employment Department. As well as advising on a full range of employment law matters, Laura specialises in advice to senior individuals in the financial sector, particularly in relation to investigatory and disciplinary matters involving compliance and FCA regulatory issues. She has extensive experience in advising on complex and high-value matters for corporate clients and senior individuals (employees, directors, senior executives and partners), and has an increasing practice in partnership and LLP matters.
Andrew Short
Andrew is a member of the Dispute Resolution department. He is an experienced litigator having advised clients in several high profile and complex matters. He advises clients across sectors such as financial services, healthcare, construction, technology and insurance. Andrew also has experience acting for governments and state organisations, with a particular focus on English court proceedings as well as significant experience of public inquiries, investigations (both regulatory and internal), mediations and crisis management.
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