TMP Solicitors’ Jacqueline McGuigan wanted to be a social worker, took a legal secretary job to pay the bills and became a lawyer after she kept correcting her bosses’ work. In other words, she is not your conventional solicitor. She took on the case of Gary Smith in Pimlico Plumbers v Smith in 2011, at […]
In a year when gender pay gap stories dominated the press, the biggest story of all centred on the media: the row over remuneration at the BBC. The BBC’s former China editor Carrie Gracie brought a complaint of sex discrimination which resulted in an apology and payout by the BBC – which Gracie donated to […]
Jennette Newman’s arrival at Clyde & Co from BLM in 2018 was a coup for the global firm in a number of ways. The recruitment of a market-leading casualty partner not only underlined the strategic importance of a national insurance practice for Clydes, but was an astute move in terms of bolstering the talent bench. […]
In Japanese, HFW’s shipping and crisis response partner Richard Neylon’s name roughly translates as ‘peaceful argument’. That is the sort of nominative determinism you cannot make up. Neylon has been working with organisations ranging from the UN to Interpol to help people and companies get out of sticky situations since 2003. His practice focuses on […]
As someone involved in one of the largest and most extensive competition inquiries the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has ever conducted, Gibson Dunn competition partner Ali Nikpay did not have time to stop in 2018. The proposed Asda-Sainsbury’s merger dominated headlines in September and the probe is due to stretch into a reasonable part […]
TLT’s dispute resolution head Chris Owen is a go-to name for litigation around contractual, corporate and engineering disputes. Last February, he was also appointed as TLT’s head of international, tasked with establishing a foreign best friends network in a post-Brexit world. In the past few months, he has negotiated alliances with up to four firms […]
Ben Parry-Smith celebrated his 10th year as a lawyer at family specialist outfit Payne Hicks Beach (PHB) in 2018, which coincided nicely with his first as a partner at the firm. The Mishcon de Reya-trained protégé to formidable family law expert Fiona Shackleton had his year mostly dominated by a surge in cases around children, […]
For a lawyer like Samantha Rowe, for whom international dispute resolution work is bread and butter, having a case go to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is about as exciting as it gets. Having made partner at Debevoise & Plimpton in July, she has spent much of her time since in between London and […]
Vicky Wickremeratne’s expertise in defending financial services clients in high reputational risk cases goes far beyond her five years as a partner at Simmons & Simmons. Prior to returning to Simmons in 2013, she served as managing director and senior counsel in Goldman Sachs’ Hong Kong office. Her six-year in-house stint working on the global […]
The nature of Harriet Wistrich’s work naturally attracts column inches and generates enormous amounts of public interest. Last year, few cases captured people’s attention quite like the decision she won to overturn the release of ‘black cab rapist’ John Worboys after the Parole Board elected to set him free. Working with Matrix Chambers’ Phillippa Kaufmann […]
It is unprecedented for the Hot 100 to contain an anonymous figure. However, The Secret Barrister’s contribution to the legal profession last year deserves recognition. His or her book, The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken, did an immense amount to bring the plight of British justice to wider public attention. […]
With over 30 years served at the construction Bar, Stephanie Barwise QC has plenty of experience in all manner of complex disputes. It was perhaps her work on the Ladbroke Grove rail crash inquiry 20 years ago that set her up to take on one of the biggest matters of our generation: she is providing […]