Third senior hire in a month for Mills & Reeve
BIRMINGHAM law firm Mills & Reeve has appointed Ruth Smith as national head of procurement law.
It is the third senior appointment made at the firm’s Birmingham office over the last month. She joins new recruits Peter McLintock in the corporate team and Kevin Lowe in corporate tax.
Smith is the former head of procurement at rival law firm Pinsent Masons and is one of the country’s top specialists in this niche sector: she is one of only six lawyers ranked in the top tier for public procurement by legal “bible” Chambers.
Smith advises public, private and utility sector clients on procurement and bidding strategies and on all other aspects of the public procurement regime. She also has an active contentious practice, bringing and defending challenges to procurement decisions.
Her recent work includes advising the Audit Commission on the outsourcing of its in-house audit practice, which is expected to deliver savings of circa £250m for the public sector over five years. She also advised the Department for Culture Media and Sports and Broadband Delivery UK on the procurement of their broadband delivery framework.
Smith will be based at the law firm’s Birmingham office. She is tasked with leading and developing Mills & Reeve’s existing public procurement practice across sectors including health, education, technology, and central government, and enhancing the firm’s procurement law offering.
She said: “I’m delighted to have joined Mills & Reeve at what is an exciting time for the procurement law team.
“We’re working in a highly dynamic and rapidly changing market with more litigation, a new European directive on the horizon and numerous Government policies on procurement coming through. Against that backdrop, we certainly have interesting times ahead.”
Steve Allen, who head up Mills & Reeve’s operation in the city, said: “This is a major strategic investment for our growing procurement practice and will help us to build yet further on our reputation in this area.
“We are extremely excited to have a key player such as Ruth on board and I am delighted that she will be based in our Birmingham office.”
