Mishcon de Reya has announced that 13 individuals will join the senior team as part of its latest promotions round. Six people will join the Partnership, including four new female Partners, with a further seven rising to the role of Legal Director.
Commenting on the news, Managing Partner James Libson said; "It is a pleasure to welcome these people to the leadership team. All of the applications demonstrated an incredibly diverse range of skill sets, ideas and accomplishments combined with drive, ambition and a love for, and commitment to, the Firm. Our promotions process is one of the most important in our calendar and gives us a glimpse into our future. Based on this cohort of promotions, our future looks very assured."
The Partner promotions are:
Allison Keyse
Allison is a member of the Corporate department. She is an experienced private equity lawyer whose core focus is acting for management teams and owner/founder-managers on buy-outs and investments. She also has a wealth of experience advising PE backed companies and other corporates on mergers and acquisitions, fundraisings and joint ventures.
Alexander Rhodes
Alexander is Head of Mishcon Purpose. He advises clients on how successfully to transition towards resilient, sustainable business, including on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues. He combines deep litigation, reputation and advocacy expertise with purpose-driven insight to help clients manage risks and seize the opportunities of a rapidly changing world. He was the founding CEO of the charity Stop Ivory; head of the Secretariat to the inter-governmental Elephant Protection Initiative; and is the Chairman of Tusk Trust.
Claire Yorke
Claire is part of the Family department, practising exclusively in the area of family law for nearly 14 years. She specialises in advising clients on the financial consequences of a relationship breakdown. Her expertise includes dealing with trusts and corporate assets, inherited wealth, complex remuneration structures and international assets, often where there are allegations of non-disclosure or dissipation. Claire also has a particular interest in wealth protection, advising clients on pre and post nuptial agreements.
Kate Clark
Kate is also a member of the Family department. She specialises in all aspects of family law with a particular emphasis on financial issues following divorce. Kate also advises on cohabitation disputes and private law children matters, including applications for leave to remove children from the jurisdiction. She is experienced in advising on pre and post-marital agreements and cohabitation agreements.
Nick Kirby
Nick is part of the Real Estate department. He specialises in commercial real estate work, dealing with investment (including corporate real estate) acquisitions and sales for institutional and private clients, development work, management work and acting for both landlords and tenants. Nick is a mentor for the start-ups taking part in MDR LAB and is the Firm's Head of PropTech. As part of this role, he has built technology products which help automate and streamline tasks and co-founded a commercial property start-up, Least. In 2019, Nick was named as one of the top 10 most innovative lawyers in Europe by the Financial Times.
Sarah Spurling
Sarah is a member of the Finance department. She is an experienced finance lawyer whose practice focuses on domestic and cross-border debt financings, advising corporates, investors, developers, banks, funds and other financial institutions from a variety of industries and countries. Her work comprises property acquisition and development finance, corporate acquisition finance and general corporate lending, in which context she advises on all aspects of bilateral and syndicated finance and guarantee, security and inter-creditor issues. Sarah also has considerable experience of acting on restructuring and enforcements.
The following are promoted to Legal Director:
Edwin Chik
Edwin is a litigator specialising in finance, banking and restructuring disputes. He engages in a wide range of investment actions for investors, lenders and debtors and acts both for and against financial institutions in disputes with customers, merchants and regulators. He has particular expertise in consumer credit and payment systems. In addition to his work in finance and banking litigation, Edwin also has significant experience in restructuring and recovery disputes and of injunctive relief claims for data recovery and fraud.
Jessica Medus
Jessica is a member of the Private department, specialising in dispute resolution. She advises on both personal and commercial disputes, acting for claimants and defendants both onshore and offshore. Her clients are individuals, trustees, corporate entities, charities and private and family offices. Jessica has a particular interest in trust and estate litigation, both domestic and international and she is ranked as an Associate to Watch in the Chambers & Partners High Net Worth guide to leading high net worth lawyers.
Tom Roberts
Tom is a commercial litigator with significant experience of high value, multi-jurisdictional, complex commercial disputes across a broad range of sectors, including banking & finance, oil & gas, telecoms, media and technology and sport. His practice encompasses both claimant and defendant work, and primarily involves breach of contract, negligence, fraud and/or breach of fiduciary duty claims. Tom sits in the Commercial Litigation team, part of the wider Dispute Resolution department.
John Sendama
John is a litigator specialising in commercial fraud disputes, data theft, non-performing loan enforcement cross-border asset tracing. He regularly obtains and defends against a variety of injunctions, including asset freezing orders, search orders, computer imaging orders and third party disclosure orders. He has considerable experience acting for corporates and individuals on matters which involve complex multi-jurisdictional litigation, allegations of dishonesty, breaches of fiduciary duties and the recovery of assets misappropriated by cyber fraud techniques such as hacking, malware and phishing.
Carol Katz
Carol is a member of the Tax and Wealth Planning group in Mishcon Private, with over 15 years' experience advising on tax, trusts, philanthropy and family governance. While in practice, her particular specialism was advising non-UK residents on their exposure to the UK tax rules, focussing primarily on high and ultra-high net worth individuals and trustees. Carol is also a governor at a local primary school and a Social Mobility Ambassador for the Law Society, regularly talking to schools and universities about a career in law.
Waqar Shah
Waqar is part of the Dispute Resolution department, focusing on high value and complex indirect and direct tax cases. He has considerable experience in judicial reviews and group litigation orders and has assisted and managed high profile matters at all levels from the Tax Tribunal through to the Supreme Court. Waqar has had particular success in Alternative Dispute Resolution methods and enjoys resolving disputes before they reach the courts. More recently, Waqar has focused on HMRC matters involving employment issues and has led cases in relation to the National Minimum Wage, IR35, and the Covid-19 furlough scheme respectively.
Matthew Ewens
Matthew is a member of the White Collar Crime and Investigations Group within the Litigation department. He has extensive experience representing both individuals and corporates in cross-jurisdictional bribery, corruption and complex fraud matters. Matthew is regularly instructed to advise on ancillary criminal matters including restraint, judicial review and parallel civil fraud proceedings.
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