Esther Venning

Esther is a partner specialising in healthcare law and is head of Hill Dickinson’s Leeds office, one of the firm’s seven UK offices and 11 worldwide. As lead for the firm’s Health Commercial and Regulatory team in Leeds and Newcastle, she works with a wide range of health sector organisations providing legal advice on all manner of contractual and governance matters. 

Esther’s clients include Integrated Care Boards, NHS trusts and foundation trusts, national NHS bodies, local authorities and independent providers.

As head of office, Esther has overseen the Leeds team’s move in January 2024 into 11 Wellington Place, one of the newest and most sustainable commercial developments in the city. It’s a location that signals Hill Dickinson’s ambitions to grow its presence in Leeds to meet client demand and, in time, provide the same full-service legal offering as the firm’s largest offices in Liverpool, Manchester and London. 

The plan over the next few years is to double the current 40+ team in Leeds to fill an office capable of accommodating up to a hundred. 

Esther balances her role as a lawyer with activities that also support her twin personal passions of community engagement and EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion). They are themes that align closely with the values of Hill Dickinson as a firm and one of the reasons she was drawn to joining, initially as a legal director, back in 2017. Promotion to partner and head of office followed in 2020.

In addition to being a nominated equality lead at Hill Dickinson, Esther is actively involved in a number of Leeds-based community and fundraising projects. In 2021, she became a trustee of Basis Yorkshire, volunteering her time as a Board member for the charity, which works across the region to end stigma and safeguard vulnerable groups, including women, sex workers and young people experiencing sexual abuse and exploitation. 

Away from work, Esther enjoys getting out into the surrounding Yorkshire countryside with her family.