People: Schofield Sweeney, SleepCogni, Irwin Mitchell, and more

Schofield Sweeney has welcomed four new recruits to the firm.

Richard Baum, associate, joins the residential property team. Baum’s expertise is in residential property transactions and he will focus on providing bespoke services to high net worth individuals, investment and property trading companies as well as established clients of the firm.

The firm has also strengthened its commercial property offering with the appointment of solicitors Emma Wilson and Thomas Keighley. Wilson acts for businesses and individual clients, providing expertise and guidance on a whole range of commercial property matters. While Keighley advises on a broad range of matters including investment and development, corporate support (including share and asset acquisitions) and works with funds, investors, commercial landlords and tenants, educational organisations and property developers.

Elsewhere in the business, Jack Firman joins the commercial team as a solicitor. His specialisms include data protection matters, commercial agreements and regulatory advice. He also advises clients on commercial contracts, handling data protection issues and regulatory matters, offering solutions to the commercial pressures faced by clients.

Graham Sweeney, chief operating officer at Schofield Sweeney said: “Although these are challenging times for everyone, we are determined to continue to deliver a quality service to our clients and invest in our teams. So it is excellent to be able to welcome Emma, Jack, Richard and Thomas to the firm, to add to the expertise our teams already have and enable us to continue to help and support our clients.”

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World-renowned insomnia expert Dr Donn Posner has joined medical device and software company, SleepCogni as a medical advisor.

The business which aims to bridge the gap between clinicians and insomnia patients says Posner’s appointment further strengthens its medical & scientific advisory board with world-renowned expertise in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy treatment for Insomnia (CBT-I).

Massachusetts-based Posner is a pioneer in the empirically validated CBT-I methodology and is co-author of ‘Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Insomnia: A Session-by-Session Guide’ to educate clinicians; and ‘Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia in Those with Depression’, a guide for clinicians working with insomnia in the context of mood disorders.

Posner’s invaluable knowledge and experience will complement and enhance SleepCogni’s research and development function led by CSO, Dr Maan van de Werken (PhD in Chronobiology). He will also work closely with the rest of the advisory board which includes Dr Irshaad Ebrahim, a leading sleep clinician, and founder of The London Sleep Centre on Harley Street.

Posner commented: “It is with great pleasure and interest that I join the medical advisory board of SleepCogni to help their excellent team develop the wearable medical device.

“SleepCogni is a device that has potential to be both a direct treatment device for insomnia and/or to serve an adjunctive tool for Behavioural Sleep Medicine clinicians to better assess and extend the treatment of their sleep disordered patients.

“I look forward to working with the team to use my experience in Behavioural Sleep Medicine and CBT-I to help understand the product’s mechanisms of action, how it can best be utilised, and to determine what types of patients might be the best candidates to benefit from using this product.”

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The tax, trusts and estates team at national law firm Irwin Mitchell’s Sheffield office has welcomed a new paralegal to the team.

Emma Spicer began her career in the field of probate straight after graduating university, working at HSBC Trust Company for fifteen years. She transferred to Chorus Law when the department was sold in 2015 and worked there for three years until the department was sold again to Co-op Legal Services in 2018 before moving to Irwin Mitchell.

In her twenty years’ experience of probate administration Emma has dealt with a great variety of complex estates, responsible for the entire administration process including liaising with executors and beneficiaries, transferring or liquidating assets and dealing with inheritance tax matters.

Chris Ellison, associate and head of the Estate Administration team in Sheffield said: “I’m delighted to have someone of Emma’s calibre join our estate administration team.

“Emma joins us as one of the most experienced members of the team, so we’re very happy to expand our range of expertise as well as deliver our clients the very best service.

“We predict there will be a lot of changes to the rules when it comes to personal tax in the coming years, so Emma’s specialist knowledge will mean we’re even better equipped to handle these changes.”

The Sheffield Tax, Trusts and Estates team was recently ranked in tier two by leading independent legal directory The Legal 500 for its exemplary work.

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McCormicks Solicitors of Harrogate has appointed a new executive to bring extra capacity to its busy private client department.

Victoria Sly is a highly-regarded private client executive with more than 20 years’ experience in the profession.

She will assist head of private client, partner Elaine Lightfoot, dealing with wills, trusts, lasting powers of attorney and court of protection matters, along with the administration of estates and probate work.

Lightfoot said: “We have seen a huge increase in wills and trusts instructions as the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be felt, with many elderly and vulnerable people and those on the front line working to organise their personal affairs. Social distancing and shielding have been an added complication when wills have had to be witnessed in person and some clients have enlisted the help of neighbours, with wills being witnessed at a safe distance on garden paths, over fences and in one case, using the top of the client’s wheelie bin (disinfected!) as a makeshift desk for testators and witnesses to lean on!

“Recent guidance has resulted in permission for wills to be witnessed remotely, using platforms such as Zoom or FaceTime, but this, too, has challenges in ensuring that it happens in real time and that extreme care is taken in assessing capacity and undue influence for all testators.

“Given all these elements, Victoria’s appointment is a very positive addition to the team which means that we can enhance and extend our service.”
McCormicks’ private client department has recently won praise in both of the leading guides to the legal profession, the UK Legal 500 and Chambers UK.