Sydney Mitchell LLP

Adam Oleskow

Adam is Partner and Head of the Property Team. Giving practical advice, Adam will deal with every aspect of buying and selling domestic property in a quick and efficient manner. Adam undertakes all aspects of buying, selling and renting houses and flats, including: houses; flats; equity release; freehold purchases; remortgages; lease extensions; site development from a single property to multiple units. Adam advises developers and investors on property transactions. Among other things, Adam also advises homeowners on their house sale or purchase and equity release.

Andre Minnaar

Partner, Head of Immigration

Claire Cooper

Partner Claire covers a broad range of commercial property transactions including sale and purchase of commercial, mixed use property and HMO’s, commercial leases/landlord and tenant, commercial/mixed use/residential developments including acquisition, option agreements and promotion agreements. She also assists clients in obtaining finance for acquisitions, developments, working capital and restructuring. Claire also has a background in insolvency and restructuring working with insolvency practitioners and LPA Receivers. Claire works with a broad range of clients delivering a commercial and pragmatic approach providing clients with solutions and not obstacles wherever possible. Sectors worked with include retail, industrial & manufacturing, developers, care & health sector, restaurant and hospitality sector and caravan parks.

Dean Parnell

Dean is a Partner and he jointly heads up the Dispute Resolution department and is best known for his ability to handle high-value complicated commercial disputes and all forms of injunctive relief. He is able to act as a Supervising Solicitor on Search Orders and is also a very experienced mediator and has undertaken over 45 commercial mediations as lead mediator. In terms of his practice, Dean has acted for a wide range of organisations including FTSE 100 companies, other publicly quoted companies, multi-national organisations, central government, partnerships and owner managed businesses. Dean is also responsible for the employment and regulatory team and as a part of his practice he is able to deal with employment disputes and company defence work in respect of health and safety, trading standards and food safety prosecutions. Clients have referred to Dean as someone who ‘will always fight your corner’, ‘thinks outside the box’ and a ‘problem solver’; he is well known for wanting to achieve the best possible result for his clients.

Emma-Louise Hewitt

Head of Department, Partner

Gemma Whitchurch

Senior Associate

Heleena Gandham

Associate Solicitor

Ian Sheppard

Senior Associate Solicitor, Sydney Mitchell LLP

Karen Moores

Senior Partner and Head of the Family Team.  Karen is recognised as a Leading Individual in the Legal 500. Karen helps her clients to resolve the issues associated with family breakdown including: matrimonial finance; complex children’s issues; managing substantial assets; complex pension issues; breakdown of civil partnerships. Karen advises husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, and grandparents, partners in civil partnerships and other legal professionals in all aspects of family law. Karen has formidable negotiating skills and achieves high levels of settlement and client satisfaction. She adopts a firm but fair approach to all aspects of her litigation with an eye to the commercial realities.

Leanne Schneider-Rose

Leanne is a Partner in the Dispute Resolution Team specialising in Restructuring and Insolvency and Debt Recovery. Leanne has over 20 years experienced dealing with corporate and personal insolvency matters both contentious and non-contentious.  Leanne acts for lenders, insolvency practitioners and receivers. Leanne also acts for individuals involved in insolvency claims and directors facing misfeasance or wrongful trading claims and directors disqualification proceedings. Leanne has developed a particular specialism in the law relating to Receivers dealing with the appointment of Receivers (fixed charge or LPA) and advising Receivers on their duties and powers. Clients that Leanne acts for include; FRP Advisory LLP, Smart Insolvency, DBR Restructuring and various bridging lender clients.

Lorna Payne

Senior Associate

Marta Konieczna

Senior Associate

Mauro Vinti

Mauro is a Partner and Head of the Family Department in Shirley Mauro has a single minded approach in dealing with clients’ complex family issues. Mauro advises people on all aspects of relationship breakdown. Mauro gives advice on: Divorce and the dissolution of civil partnerships Finances & Maintenance Pre and Post Nuptial Agreements Living together Agreements Issues relating to the separation of cohabitees Mauro has experience in dealing with cases involving: International assets Complex pension structures with values in excess of £1,000,000 Complex commercial and business issues Offshore trusts Incorrectly obtained evidence Mauro has a keen investigative mind and an eye for detail, particularly suited to the analysis of business and financial accounts.

Melissa Southall

Associate Melissa is an experienced Solicitor and provides extensive personal immigration advice to our clients on spouse visas, applications for children, asylum, European applications to citizenship. Melissa is an extremely knowledgeable immigration Solicitor with over 11 years post qualification experience and almost 15 years’ experience working within the legal field. She provides extensive personal immigration advice to our clients on a wide variety of matters such as spouse visas, applications for children, asylum, citizenship, and European applications as well as some business immigration matters such as Skilled Work visas. She is recognised in the Legal 500 as being 'very approachable, professional and supportive'. Melissa has several years experience in all kinds of immigration and asylum work, and has a particular interest in applications involving the rights of children. She has worked with a number of Local Authorities over the years representing children in Local Authority care who have immigration problems.

Mike Sutton

Senior Associate, Head of Department

Mitra Mann

Mitra is a Partner and Head of Contentious Probate.  She is an experienced private client litigator specialising in inheritance and will disputes, Court of Protection disputes and professional negligence. Mitra specialises in private client litigation and has acted for clients aged from 18 years to 80 years.  She advises on and resolves disputes involving: the validity of wills claims for financial provision under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 the removal and/or replacement of executors and trustees the management and distribution of trust funds claims in the High Court to recover a vulnerable person’s assets challenging lifetime gifts professional negligence claims in respect of the transfer of assets, will-drafting, the handling of contentious probate cases, etc. In addition, Mitra has extensive experience in Court of Protection matters and has assisted clients with a range of applications which include: applying for a deputyship order to manage a vulnerable person’s property and affairs removing and/or replacing an attorney or deputy making a statutory Will gifting a substantial asset seeking the retrospective approval of a financial transaction welfare decisions such as place of residence, contact and care package

Roy Colaba

Partner, Head of Corporate and Commercial

Shelley Collingbourne

Partner

Shilpa Unarkat

Partner

Tracy Creed

Tracy is partner and head of the private client team. She has extensive experience in all areas of private client work including trusts, wills, probate, power of attorney, deputyship, inheritance tax planning, estate planning and care funding issues. Notable cases include Estate of RB (significant business and complex matters), KR+Wilson (care funding matter), Estate of G – multimillion complex matter. Tracy specialises in working with elderly clients and resolving care funding issues. She receives referrals from care homes, social services, personal referrals and other Solictiors to whom she has proved her ability to deal with matters in an effective manner. In previous Legal 500 testimonials Tracy is recognised for attracting praise from clients and the wills and probate team are referred to as being ‘extremely professional but also very personable’; ‘highly competent’ personal tax, trusts and probate team and regard Tracy as ‘very knowledgeable’. Tracy has delivered talks to a variety of care homes, financial advisers and the fire service. She has presented to the Society of Will Writers and the Institute of Professional Will Writers.