Professionals appointments: Leeds law firm welcomes two heads of department; PwC boosts tax team; and more

LAW firm Simpson Millar has hired two senior lawyers to lead its family and private client departments.

Peter Morris has joined Simpson Millar as its head of family, with Erika Sinclair joining as national head of private client. Both will be based at the firm’s head office in Leeds.

Mr Morris joins as a partner from Irwin Mitchell and takes over from Emma Pearmaine who will focus on her broader role as director of family services. He is highly experienced at representing high net worth clients, and in dealing with some of the most complex cases such as those involving business and overseas assets, choice of jurisdiction, children cases and family relocations.

Ms Sinclair spent the first ten years of her career in commercial litigation, including as in-house legal counsel at a number of FTSE 100 companies. After a career break, she moved into private client work initially with Lupton Fawcett Denison Till in Leeds, followed by Andrew Jackson.

“I am hugely excited about Erika and Peter joining Simpson Millar,” says Ms Pearmaine, “Both have a forward-thinking approach to legal services and the drive to push their teams onward in exciting directions.”

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PwC has appointed Emma Suchland as partner within the corporate tax practice.

She will be part of a dedicated team that specialises in supporting private businesses, private clients and entrepreneurs.

Ms Suchland’s appointment marks the sixth new partner investment to the Northern tax team over the last 12 months and comes on the back of three partner promotions in the team this summer – Gareth Henty, who leads the P&O pensions team in the North West, Simon Viner, who leads the tax M&A team across the North, and Daniel Harris, who leads the North’s reward team.

These most recent partner admissions build on PwC’s announcements earlier in the year which saw Kit Dickson and Paul Cooper join the Northern tax team as corporate tax partners.

The partner appointments have been supported by three further director hires and six director promotions to the team over the same period. 

PwC’s tax leader for the North, Martin Hodgson, said: “It is testament to the strength of our Northern practice, and our continued investment strategy to build our tax team capability that we are able to attract industry leaders whilst at the same time nurturing and developing our existing talent so we can best support our clients’ growth ambitions.”

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NETWORK RAIL has announced plans to recruit 11 apprentices across Yorkshire as part of an expansion to its advanced apprenticeship scheme.

The three-year programme will now offer 300 young people throughout the country the chance to ‘earn while they learn’ in 2017. Apprentices will be recruited through two intakes, in March and September, and will gain work experience, transferable skills and recognised qualifications.

The apprentices will spend their first five months at Network Rail’s modern training facility near Coventry, specialising in one of five areas: electrification and plant, overhead lines, signalling, telecoms or track.

They will then return to the region and work at local depots in Doncaster, York and Malton as part of Network Rail’s Railway Upgrade Plan.

Network Rail group HR director Ian Iceton said: “Network Rail has been committed to providing opportunities for young people to develop and progress into a rewarding career for more than ten years. Britain’s railways are one of this country’s success stories and apprentices are a vital part of our 36,000-strong team working to deliver our Railway Upgrade Plan to make our railway better and bigger.”