People: Ison Harrison; Bell & Buxton; Social; and more

Law firm Ison Harrison has made nine promotions across its network of Yorkshire offices.

Among promotions from solicitor to partner are Ami Law, Gemma Vine, Magda Dakowicz, Tim Wilson, Simon Helliwell, Jessica Haigh, James Pascoe, Katrina Stapleton and Georgina Pogge-Von Strandman.

Vine joined as an experienced specialist inquest lawyer in 2020.

She has played a key role in helping the firm develop a national reputation for inquest and civil liberties work and due to her profile and expertise, was instrumental in securing the firm’s recent Claims Against Public Authorities (CAPA) legal aid contract.

Dakowicz joined the new build team as a conveyancing assistant in 2016 and rose through the ranks at several regional offices until taking on the responsibility of running the new build team based at the firm’s Leeds head office.

She deals with all aspects of residential sales, purchases and part-exchange matters and is fluent in Polish.

Wilson joined in 1997 in what was then the firm’s largest team – the Road Traffic Accident team.

In 2012, he changed direction to become a private client lawyer. He is a wills and probate fee-earner at the Crossgates office, and is respected and well-known across the firm having worked at various offices and teams throughout his career.

Helliwell has been at the firm for over two decades, originally arriving in 1999.

He joined the personal injury team in 2004 and his approach to catastrophic injury and brain injury cases has consistently delivered the best results for clients.

In 2021, he secured compensation in excess of £3m for a client who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a road traffic accident.

Haigh has been with the firm since August 2021 as an assistant solicitor working out of the Pontefract and Barnsley offices.

Specialising in wills and probate, she is now based permanently in Barnsley and is one of the firm’s leading wills and probate lawyers.

Pascoe joined as a residential property lawyer in August 2017 and was the first person to start working from the Harrogate office when it opened in 2021.

His key strength is the relationships he has forged with estate agents and mortgage advisers, with whom he has worked for many years, establishing a solid reputation for both himself and the firm in Harrogate and beyond.

Stapleton has been instrumental in supporting the clinical negligence team.

Since joining in 2017, the performance of the division has gone from strength-to-strength and she has played a key part in the department’s growth and success over the last seven years. She is also a standard bearer for wellbeing initiatives at the firm.

Pogge-Von Strandman joined the residential property team in 2015 bringing several years of local and national experience into her role.

Now branch manager of the Harrogate office, she quickly established the firm’s presence in the town and has grown the office into one of the firm’s best-performing regional branches.

Law joined the firm’s clinical negligence division in 2015. She has grown to become one of the most able litigators and clinical negligence lawyers on the team and was promoted to associate last year.

Jonathan Wearing, managing director said: “As we did last year, we’ve got off to a flying start for 2024 with a big round of strategic promotions that will give a huge boost to the continued growth of the business, exactly two years after becoming entirely employee owned.

“The past 12 months have seen an ongoing focus on the expansion of our commercial offering and specialist services for an ever-growing client base.

“These latest promotions follow the most successful year we’ve ever had. The contributions to the firm from the promoted individuals, some of whom have been with us over 20 years, are all well deserved.”

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Bell & Buxton Solicitors has welcomed Josh Fenton-Hawkes to its team.

He has over 12 years of expertise in the legal field and is a Wills, Trusts, and Probate Executive.

His specialisation encompasses various aspects of Estate Planning, such as creating Wills and Trusts, overseeing the administration of deceased estates, and managing Lasting Powers of Attorneys.

Fenton-Hawkes is originally from Doncaster but currently lives in Sheffield.

His mother has over 40 years of experience as a property lawyer. She inspired him to embark on a legal career at Atteys Solicitors, where he initially worked at its Doncaster office before transitioning to the Trippet Lane office in Sheffield.

Following this, he continued his training at another branch under the guidance of the head of the Wills, Trusts, and Probate Department.

Following the closure of Atteys, he joined a local firm in North Nottinghamshire/southeast Doncaster.

Here, he furthered his training in the Private Client area, managing a diverse workload which included Wills, Lasting Powers of Attorney, Probate and Estate Administration, Agricultural Estate Administration, and Court of Protection work.

In 2019 he oversaw a newly opened office. Over a four-year period, he built a team comprising four lawyers and six support staff, overcoming the challenges posed by the pandemic.

He said: “I am thrilled to be joining Bell & Buxton and I look forward to settling into the role and helping to expand the business in 2024.”

Partner Matthew Rodgers added: “With his background in Private Client work and the boundless enthusiasm he brings, Josh will be a valuable addition to the team, and we look forward to working with him.

“Josh will excel here at Bell & Buxton, bringing with him his background in Private Client work, he will be a valuable addition to the team.

“This year is set to see the organisation go through expansive growth and Josh will help us achieve our goals.”

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Communications agency, Social, has appointed Pete Wrathmell as its new managing director.

He joined the company in 2014 as an account director in Manchester, before setting up the agency’s Leeds office in 2016.

The business employs 25 staff across its Manchester, Leeds, London and Liverpool offices.

The move also sees founder and former chief executive, John Quinton-Barber, stepping into a new role as partnerships director & executive chairman. Quinton-Barber founded Social 10 years ago.

Wrathmell said: “It’s a real privilege to take on the leadership of Social as we head into our second decade.

“John and I have known each other for nearly 20 years and I’m proud to continue the legacy that he’s created.

“We’ve always taken a values-led approach to life at Social – whether that’s the internal team culture or how we work in partnership with our clients.

“And that will continue to guide us as an agency; creating the conversations that drive positive social change.

“We begin 2024 with energy and confidence, with a dynamic leadership team in place and an incredibly talented and hard-working team.”

Quinton-Barber said: “This moment of succession was always going to come for me, and I’m pleased to be handing over the leadership of Social to Pete and his senior colleagues.

“I am incredibly proud of the business that I founded in 2013 and all that we have achieved over the last decade.

“I am looking forward to my new role which will see me doing what I enjoy the most by supporting our clients with strategic counsel whilst still being available to Pete and the team as they implement their new vision for Social.”

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Lewis Silkin has appointed Aaron Trebble as legal director in the firm’s Intellectual Property practice group.

Based in Leeds, his appointment marks the expansion of Lewis Silkin’s IP360 service to the city, further enhancing its offering to creative and innovative businesses in the north of England.

Joining Lewis Silkin from DLA Piper, Trebble is an experienced IP litigator as well as an expert in contentious data protection matters.

He has a particular focus on issues affecting software, video games and technology businesses, including technology issues in the public sector.

This includes having regularly advised on matters such as ownership and licensing of software, disputes involving rights ownership and software defects.

He has worked with clients across a wide range of contentious and non-contentious intellectual property matters, encompassing brand protection; patent and trade mark disputes; copyright and design infringement; passing off and cyber-squatting; and intellectual property issues arising from corporate and commercial transactions.

His contentious data practice includes disputes relating to subject access requests and compensation requests, ranging from discrete single party claims to complex multi-claimant matters.

Trebble has extensive experience of High Court and County Court proceedings, including applying for and defending applications for urgent injunctions and other interim relief, as well as securing and executing search orders and freezing injunctions with respect to anti-counterfeiting.

His appointment follows the launch of Lewis Silkin in Leeds in May 2023, and the expansion of the firm’s IP practice in the north of England led by partner Laura Harper – who joined the firm’s Manchester office in 2023.

Jo Farmer, joint managing partner, said: “We are very pleased to welcome Aaron to Lewis Silkin.

“We’ve seen real momentum building following our launch in Leeds, and the addition of an IP offering in the city is the logical next step to enhance our client offering in the region – supported by Laura Harper in Manchester.”

Trebble added: “Joining the firm and helping to bring this offering and experience into Leeds, and beyond, is incredibly exciting.

“Driven by rapid technological advancement, businesses are continuing to derive ever more value from their IP, and their data.

“But innovation is often a double-edged sword, with risks growing in scale and complexity – ranging from cybersecurity challenges to AI-powered rights creation and infringement.”