People: Squire Patton Boggs; Mint Property Finance; Anthony Collins; Dow Schofield Watts; Stephensons; Harrison Drury; Perch

Vanessa Stuart

Squire Patton Boggs has hired Vanessa Stuart as a director into its restructuring and insolvency practice in Manchester. She joins from Glaisyers, where she was head of restructuring and insolvency, and will be supported, in particular, by partners John Alderton and Russ Hill.

Ms Stuart has a wide ranging practice, providing both contentious and non-contentious advice to companies, insolvency practitioners, banks and other lenders. She has significant experience advising on all aspects of restructuring, business recovery, corporate and personal insolvency matters, including the sale of business and assets out of administration, Company Voluntary Arrangements (CVAs) and insolvent property transactions, as well as advising on directors’ duties, wrongful trading risks and the tracing and recovery of assets.

Ms Stuart is one of a number of hires the firm has made into its restructuring and insolvency practice in recent months, with a team of lawyers joining the firm from Brown Rudnick, including partners Charlotte Møller and Monika Lorenzo-Perez in London, and Arnaud Moussatoff in Paris.

“We are very pleased to welcome Vanessa to our team,” said John Alderton, partner and head of the firm’s UK restructuring and insolvency practice group. “As the economic climate causes distress for companies across many industries, the services of experienced restructuring lawyers continue to be in demand. Vanessa’s appointment is one of many we have made in recent months as we continue to build out our full service restructuring practice across Europe to support our clients.”

Rob Elvin, managing partner of the firm’s Manchester office, said: “As the firm continues to grow in Manchester, we are committed to strengthening our capabilities in key practices. With 14 years of experience and a wealth of connections, Vanessa will drive our restructuring and insolvency offering in the region, whilst also complementing the work of our market leading corporate and financial services practices.”

Ms Stuart said: ““From the moment I met with Squires, I immediately saw the team’s energy and ambition. I am very much looking forward to being part of that, as the firm continues to grow its UK and global presence in the restructuring and insolvency sector.”

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Steve Smith

Specialist finance lender, Mint Property Finance, has welcomed Steve Smith to the business.

It is a significant hire, with Smith bringing more than 24 years’ property finance expertise to the business. His rounded career saw him start out at the Bank of Scotland in 1997 where he achieved a breadth of experience in mainstream banking, before becoming a professional broker, a role held for seven years. A specialisation into property finance followed, including several senior positions at lenders over the course of seven years.

In his role as head of sales at Cheshire-based Mint Property Finance, he will be responsible for leading and growing the business’s national sales team.

Operations director, Paul Wertheim, said: “Steve brings with him tremendous expertise and we are confident will play a significant role in helping us achieve our plans for continued national growth.”

Mr Smith said: “I am delighted and proud to join the Mint Property Finance team. Their reputation as an innovative and forward thinking company precedes them and I look forward to playing my part in their continued growth.”

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Phil Saunders

Social purpose law firm Anthony Collins (AC) has appointed four senior associates, four associates and one legal director across its specialist sectors of local government, housing, health and social care, charities and social business.

The appointments are across five of the B Corp-accredited firm’s specialist departments including clinical negligence and personal injury, property, family law, projects and the governance, funding and corporate team.

New legal director, Andrew Crumpton, joined AC in 2015 as a solicitor in the family law team, specialising in family proceedings, child arrangement orders and adoptions as well as holding the Children Law Accreditation from The Law Society, which is a recognised quality standard for practitioners.

There have been four senior associate promotions with Amy Callahan-Page, in the projects team, who specialises in construction disputes and public procurement, along with Esther Campsall for the governance, funding and corporate team, Narinder Singh for the family law team and planning and highways lawyer, Max Howarth.

At associate level, Sarah Owen, from the personal injury and clinical negligence team, Felicity Hercik in the governance, funding and corporate team, Puja Desai in the Court of Protection team, and Amy Barons in the property department, have all been promoted.

Phil Saunders, head of HR and office services at Anthony Collins, said: “This investment in our talented solicitors will allow us to continue our work as a social purpose law firm and our mission to improve lives, communities and society.

He added: “I would like to congratulate each of our new promotees on achieving this milestone and the next steps in their careers and look forward to seeing them bring positive change to our clients and wider communities.”

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From left: Alex Odlin, Tom Dutton, Callum Sellar, Ross Thomas

Dow Schofield Watts has made four promotions in its North West corporate finance team.

Callum Sellar and Tom Dutton have been promoted to director, while Ross Thomas has been made associate director and Alex Odlin becomes manager. All joined Dow Schofield Watts having previously trained with the big four accountancy firms.

Gregg Pendlington, who leads the team, said: “Nurturing and developing our home-grown talent, and providing opportunities for promotion is a key priority at Dow Schofield Watts.

“These promotions recognise the hard work and dedication of the team members over recent years in what has been a very busy trading period for the business.”

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From left: Sophie Maloney, Adam Pennington, Emma Roberts, Andrew Whitehead

National law firm, Stephensons, has announced its latest round of partner promotions, with four solicitors from its family, employment, court of protection and commercial litigation departments joining the partnership.

Emma Roberts becomes a partner after joining the firm’s family department in 2019. A Resolution accredited family lawyer, Emma specialises in private client family law matters and earlier this year became head of divorce and finances.

Sophie Maloney manages the firms Court of Protection and community care department. Having joined the department in 2012, Sophie has built a wealth of experience in dealing with Court of Protection welfare matters and judicial reviews in the context of community care.

Andrew Whitehead is an experienced commercial litigation solicitor. Having joined the firm in 2012, Andrew has established strong expertise in legal expense work, landlord and tenant litigation and dispute resolution.

Finally, Adam Pennington becomes a partner in the firm’s employment law department. Having joined Stephensons in 2010, Adam qualified as a solicitor in 2015 and has developed his expertise in a wide range of employment law matters. Adam regularly provides legal commentary in the national and broadcast press.

All four solicitors joined the partnership from May 1, 2023.

David Baybut, chair of Stephensons, said: “I’m thrilled to welcome these four talented solicitors to the partnership.”

Stephensons has offices in Manchester, Wigan, St Helens and London.

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From left: Clare Fleming, James Patterson, Emma Panchal, Jon Osborne

North West law firm Harrison Drury has strengthened its family law and private client teams in Lytham with two senior hires from Coupe Bradbury.

Experienced solicitors Emma Panchal, and James Patterson, have both joined Harrison Drury’s Lytham office having previously worked across Coupe Bradbury’s Lytham and Kirkham offices.

Emma, who joins the firm as a senior associate solicitor, specialises in family law, guiding clients through divorce, matrimonial finances, and child arrangements.

Meanwhile, associate solicitor James is a STEP qualified expert in private client matters, advising on trust and estate planning, mental capacity issues, wills, lasting powers of attorney and Court of Protection work.

John Osborne, partner and head of the family team at Harrison Drury, said: “Emma has a wide breadth of experience in family law, but more than that she’s someone who clients turn to for quality advice and support at a time when they need it most.”

Emma said: “I was attracted to Harrison Drury because it’s a firm with great values that understands the importance of building close working relationships with its clients.”

Clare Fleming, partner and head of the private client team at Harrison Drury, said: “James is a trusted source of advice to his clients, providing them with long term support and advice and supporting them with often complex legal matters around trusts and estate planning.”

James said: “It’s great to see Harrison Drury continuing to grow its presence in Lytham and I’m delighted to have joined the firm to help more clients with planning for the future.”

Emma, who lives in Preston, graduated with a law degree from UCLan and worked at Coupe Bradbury solicitors for just under 10 years before joining Harrison Drury.

James headed up the private client team at Coupe Bradbury before joining Harrison Drury. He has 15 years of experience in private client legal matters and is a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP). He also belongs to the Law Society’s private client section.

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Bronia O’Regan Perch Group

North-West based Perch Group, one of the UK’s fastest-growing debt purchase, collections, litigation and reconnection firms, has appointed Rob Oxley as Origination Director and Bronia O’Regan as Lead Implementation Manager. 

Rob Oxley brings 13 years’ experience in senior client facing roles within the credit risk and collections industry to Perch Group. Four of those years were spent at TransUnion and six at Lowell, one of Europe’s largest credit management companies, where he was responsible for leading commercial activities across several sectors including retail, telecoms, utilities and financial services. He joins Marco Pace and Dayle Hutchinson in the business development team who have 33 and 8 years of debt purchase industry experience respectively. 

Also formerly from Lowell, Bronia O’Regan has almost 20 years’ experience, most recently as Director of Client Services at field services provider Engage. She will be responsible for managing Perch Group’s client portfolios post-sale.

Andrew Bartle, the original Founder of Lowell Financial joined Perch Group as Chief Commercial Officer two years ago to head up the sales, data analytics and strategy functions. These new appointments support his vision for Perch Group to be able to service the full spectrum of debt types and sectors from mail order and financial services to utilities and telecoms.

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