Ellis Jones Solicitors LLP

The firm: Ellis Jones Solicitors LLP is a leading independent law firm located in Dorset and Hampshire in the South of England and in London. The firm offers a wide range of services to individuals and businesses, with a focus on SME and owner managed businesses.

Ellis Jones prides itself on delivering excellence and professionalism with personality. They have been recognised in The Times Best Law Firms 2020 and are ranked year on year in The Legal 500 and listed in the Chambers and Partners High Net Worth Guide.

Principal areas of work
Commercial litigation: Ellis Jones Solicitors’ commercial litigation team has a wealth of experience advising businesses and individuals on a wide range of disputes. Its national reputation and wide-ranging referral network sees it act for SMEs, charities and individuals across a range of complex and high-value disputes.

Comprising of 19 lawyers, the team incorporates dispute resolution (Tier 1 The Legal 500 2022), banking and finance litigation, and contentious insolvency. It is headed by partners William Fox Bregman, Lauren Day (Leading Individual The Legal 500 2022),  Paul Kanolik (Key Lawyer The Legal 500 2022) who has niche experience in bringing claims against betting companies, and senior associate Caroline Palacio, who has a wealth of experience in insolvency matters.

The team’s banking and finance offering has recovered in excess of £60m for clients since it was established in 2012 and the Firm has recovered over £3.8m from various betting operators in relation to gambling disputes over the last two years.

Family: The family department (Tier 2 The Legal 500 2022) is the largest team of family mediators/collaborative lawyers in Dorset, committed to achieving accreditation by Resolution (a national family lawyers’ association) through rigorous testing on legal, strategic and procedural knowledge. Partner Sean McNally is a collaborative lawyer and trained mediator with experience in handling a wide range of family law matters. Both Deborah Leask and Ian Butterworth are accredited specialists in complex high value financial cases and Deborah is also an accredited specialist in pensions.

Katie Taft and Claudie Paddick are accredited in the field of Child Abduction and Children Law and act for parents across the world in international child abduction. They are included on the highly specialist ICACU panel. Katie is also recognised by the charity “Reunite” as an expert in this field. Ian sits as a Deputy District Judge and is a member of the Resolution specialist accreditation committee which oversees the accreditation scheme nationwide.

Business services: The Ellis Jones business services team (Tier 3 The Legal 500 2022) offers technical and practical advice in corporate and general commercial work with a dedicated employment law team (Tier 2 The Legal 500 2022) led by partner Kate Brooks. Offering a solid blend of HR and traditional employment law services and is particularly regarded for work involving education and charity employers, as well as LGBT clients in discrimination cases. Specialist sectors include healthcare, E-commerce, IT, FCA regulated clients, academies and charities.

Neil Cook (partner and head of department) is dual qualified, having been admitted as a US Attorney in New York and as a result deals with International transactions. Neil has also owned a care home and is able to provide specialist advice to the healthcare sector. The team have worked with clients overseas in many jurisdictions.

Wills, trusts and probate: Partner, Carla Brown, heads the wills, trusts and probate department (Tier 3 The Legal 500 2022), highly regarded for its trust practice in particular, whilst also maintaining a very strong reputation for will writing, estate planning and estate administration. Carla was noted as “a master of her craft as a private client lawyer.”

The department handles a diverse range of needs to fit the requirements of high-net-worth individuals. Partner, Chris Pemberton, was noted in The Legal 500 2022 for his work with farmers and landed estates. Also within the department we have private client consultant, Andy Kirby, who specialises in estate and tax planning for HNW & UHNW clients referred almost exclusively from a large network of SJP and other financial advisers. Richard Smith joined the firm as a partner in 2021 and has a wide range of expertise including, wills, administration of estate, lasting powers of attorney.

Contentious trusts and probate: Awarded Tier 2 in The Legal 500 2022, the team’s work includes Inheritance Act claims, disputes concerning the validity of wills, estate and trust disputes, and proprietary estoppel claims. Lauren Day and Victoria Riddleston have been named as key lawyers in The Legal 500 (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022), and Victoria has been named as an Associate to Watch in Chambers & Partners High Net Worth Guide for the last three years (2019, 2020 and 2021).  The Contentious Trusts and Probate team has four specialist lawyers, with the quality and expertise of the team being described as “second to none”.

Property: Ellis Jones are experts in both commercial and residential property. The commercial property team (Tier 3 The Legal 500 2022) offer specialist advice in residential and commercial redevelopment, as well as property acquisitions and management. Partner Tim Sharpley has expertise in restrictive covenants and acts for a wide range of clients from management companies and land owners to large regional house builders with multi-million pound projects.

Partner Matthew Clake was recognised in The Legal 500  2022 for approaching his volume of work with “humour, professionalism and innovation” and is highly regarded for his technical knowledge and proactive approach.

Partner Richard Tombs has 30 years experience covering most aspects of commercial and residential property legal work. The firm also has expert residential conveyancing lawyers who offer a first class service and specialise in all types of residential freehold and leasehold sales and purchases, ranging from first-time buyers to multi-million pound transactions.

Personal injury: This highly qualified team deal with accident at work claims, road traffic and cycling claims, military personnel claims and clinical negligence. Partner and head of department David McWilliam has over 20 years experience in the field and sits on the Law Society’s Personal Injury Panel illustrating his expertise.

Further niche services comprise crime, insolvency, regulatory law, LGBT+ services, sports law, intellectual property, betting, gambling and gaming, and fertility law including surrogacy (domestic and international), this service is one that very few law firms provide both nationally and internationally.

• Managing partner: Nigel Smith
• Number of partners: 19
• Number of fee-earners:  67