Appointments: Barber Titleys; Bond Dickinson; Turley Associates
TWO new private client specialists have been recruited by North Yorkshire law firm Barber Titleys as part of a major re-positioning of its services.
Two new lawyers, Catherine Armitage, who re-joins the firm as a partner from Newstead and Walker in Otley, and Kieran McIvor, who joins from a Cumbrian firm, will help Harrogate-based Barber Titleys create one of the biggest wills, trusts and probate departments in North Yorkshire, with a total team of 11, including partners Judith Long and Mark Jones.
This comes as the practice withdraws from company and commercial work with the retirement of partner Martin Blackham, after 37 years. He will remain a consultant to the firm.
Barber Titleys’ re-positioning started last autumn with the appointment of senior solicitor, Simon Berger who succeeds Martin Blackham in delivering the firm’s civil litigation work. He will also help drive the expansion of the firm’s services for contested probate and trust matters.
Barber Titleys’ new focus on private client work dovetails with the firm’s other key expertise in residential and commercial property through a team led by partner Richard Davis and planning and development through partner Tim Axe.
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LAW firm Bond Dickinson has promoted Alistair Scott-Somers to partner in its Leeds office.
Scott-Somers has lived and worked in and around Leeds all his life and in the past he worked for Eversheds and as in house counsel at Leeds-based FTSE 100 company Premier Farnell.
His promotion forms part of Bond Dickinson’s first round of promotions, which included five other partners from across the firm’s restructuring and insolvency, corporate, construction and engineering, insurance and regulatory and environment practices.
He said: “To be appointed as a partner of our new firm, Bond Dickinson, and at such a key time for the business is extremely exciting. This is the beginning of a new journey for what were Dickinson Dees and Bond Pearce.
“Leeds will be a market that Bond Dickinson will continue to invest heavily in and I’m delighted to be given an opportunity to lead from the front and develop our offering here.”
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PLANNING and urban design consultancy Turley Associates has strengthened its Leeds planning team with the appointment of director John Brooks.
Brooks headed DTZ’s Northern planning team in Leeds and has extensive experience of leading multi-disciplinary teams responsible for delivering a wide range of residential, mixed-use and institutional planning projects.
He is currently chairman of the Leeds Planning & Developers Forum and a member of the Leeds Planning Reform Group.
Brooks is currently advising the landowner on planning for the north of England’s largest solar farm at Haigh Hall Farm at West Ardsley, Leeds. Recent projects include securing outline planning permission for 425 residential units with a mix of commercial uses on an 18 hectare site in Spennymoor, County Durham.
He also secured full planning permission for a new building called the ‘Creative Solution’ for use by Preston College’s School of Visual & Performing Arts.
