People: Flint Bishop; Shakespeare Martineau

Law firm Flint Bishop has welcomed eight new hires within its debt recovery operation, with the news following on from the appointment of Niall Gilhooley as head of debt services.

Describing the move as “significant”, Gilhooley’s restructured team has already welcomed 15 new members since he joined the firm in mid-July, with a further eight new hires planned over the coming months.

He added: “To support the future growth trajectory in line with the firm’s strategic plans, economic factors and other market opportunities, I will work to further develop our operating model and operational resilience to deal with increased demand whilst we continue to exceed clients’ expectations.

“Of critical focus will be the capitalisation and integration of digital technologies and automation, ensuring our proposition is market-leading by being agile, quickly scalable, efficient, and effective.

“This is an exciting time of significant growth opportunities for my team and the firm as a whole, and I am very much looking forward to seeing what the next few months have in store for us all.”

Trainees Tait Grundy, Sarah Johnson, Abigail Lynch and Sophie Plant (L-R) have joined Shakespeare Martineau in the East Midlands

Law firm Shakespeare Martineau has welcomed 11 trainees – its largest ever cohort – including four in the East Midlands.

Abigail Lynch, Sarah Johnson, Tait Grundy and Sophie Plant have joined the firm in the East Midlands and will be based in its Nottingham and Leicester offices.

Kiran Kaushal, Katie Parker, Helen Rowland, Lucy Feghhi and Sophie Roberts will be based in the West Midlands, primarily in Birmingham.

Camilla Uppal will be working from Shakespeare Martineau’s London office, while Joseph Shields is the firm’s first Scottish trainee and will be based in Edinburgh.

The trainees will undertake four six-month seats in a variety of specialist practice areas across the firm, including real estate finance, commercial property, education, social housing and litigation.

Emily Cupi, early ambitions development adviser at Shakespeare Martineau, said: “We are delighted to welcome 11 trainees to the firm across a variety of regions, including our first in Scotland, and we are committed to ensuring they receive the very best start to their legal careers.

“Our trainees are our future and make a valuable contribution to the firm. We are proud to support them on their journey to becoming qualified solicitors; they are all extremely talented individuals and I have no doubt they will each be an asset to their teams and the firm.

“We firmly believe in investing in our people to ensure we have the skills and talent necessary to drive the firm’s future organic growth. I look forward to watching them grow and develop as lawyers in their time with us, and I am excited to see what the future holds for them.”

Many of Shakespeare Martineau’s current partners and lawyers qualified through its training contract programme, including partners Lisa Botterill and Andrew Wilkinson, who started as trainees in the 2000s when the firm was known as Harvey Ingram.

Botterill said: “I grew up in Leicester always knowing the firm was the best in the city. I was lucky enough to transfer my training contract halfway through and spent 14 months of my two years training with the firm. I received a very good grounding in the area that I wanted to qualify into and have never looked back since I qualified.

“We have always done a really wide range of interesting work, which has provided me with a varied career and, 21 years later, I am delighted to still be working for some of the same clients I was working for all those years ago.”

Contentious probate partner Wilkinson added: “Little did I know at the time that the firm I joined would become the firm it is now. I’ve seen extraordinary change, but throughout my time, the firm has supported my growth and development, and I am proud to call it home.”