Browne Jacobson LLP

Browne Jacobson LLP

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Ben Bentley

Ben Bentley

Ben is an accomplished Partner Barrister working in the firm’s in-house advocacy team since his call to the Bar in 2008. He routinely appears in court to conduct trials, coroner’s inquests and to prosecute on behalf of government regulatory agencies at various tribunals. He is adept at drafting court pleadings, advising on issues of liability and quantum in personal injury matters, and handling complex civil procedure applications. He has had considerable success in employer and public liability matters in court and has also achieved notable victories defending against credit hire claims. He is additionally experienced in dealing with costs matters, particularly in challenging the recovery of after the event insurance premiums. Ben’s education practice also extends to prosecution on behalf of the National College for Teaching & Leadership; and advising and advocating at all levels of Tribunal in respect to Special Educational Needs and Disability Discrimination matters.
Kelly Buckley

Kelly Buckley

Kelly is a Partner in the Nottingham NHS Resolution team and has been actively involved in a number of the leading cases included within our submission, in particular [non-publishable matter 1]. Kelly has extensive experience of acting in high value and/or complex clinical negligence claims for NHS bodies including NHS Resolution, NHS Trusts and NHS England along with GPs and privately insured doctors. Kelly has a wealth of understanding of the legal landscape regarding informed consent following her involvement in the leading Court of Appeal case of Shaw v Kovac. She has worked with NHS Trusts and clinicians to provide an insight into this important and developing area of law and medical ethics. See for example our video blog on consent. https://www.brownejacobson.com/health/training-and-resources/training-videos/2018/11/consent-for-clinicians She is one of the team’s mediation champions and has considerable experience of mediating the most complex and sensitive cases. This includes successful resolution of a group action involving multiple patients, a very high value claim where a GP had suffered significant physical harm during childbirth and a teenage suicide case which was covered by BBC’s Panorama programme.
Fiona Butler

Fiona Butler

Fiona has developed a broad professional disciplinary practice in education and healthcare over the last 21 years. Praised for ‘stellar advice which takes pitfalls into account’, she is now a trusted legal advisor to the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) and sits as Legal Advisor to the Professional Conduct Committee of the Chartered Institute of Building. Fiona is a key name in a highly responsive team has strategically advised both the Teaching Regulation Agency and Department of Education in relation to the first ever case in which a teacher was prosecuted for failing to comply with the Prevent Duty as defined by s.26(1) of the Counter-terrorism and Security Act 2015. Fiona’s health practice sees her instructed in a wide range of cases from simple ‘documentary’ inquests to complex Article 2 cases, often with a high media profile.  She has acted on behalf of NHS Trusts (acute, mental health, community and ambulance), local authorities, education settings, security regulators and insurers both locally and nationally. Fiona is a registered pupil supervisor with the Bar Standards Board and having pioneered the way for Browne Jacobson to become an approved Pupillage Training Organisation in 2010 and has successfully trained four barristers and assisted with the training of four others.
Heather Caddy

Heather Caddy

Since joining Browne Jacobson in 2013 as a Senior Associate, Heather has provided specialist advice and support to both public (NHS England, NHS Acute Trusts, Mental Health Trusts, Ambulance Services, Clinical Commissioning Groups) and independent health sector organisations as well as individual healthcare practitioners.  More recently, her practice interest has expanded, to include Court of Protection, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards and Mental Health Law. Very recently Heather impressed the team with the way she cut through a complex mental health matter concerning the interplay between the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Mental Health Act 1983 and the impact of recent Supreme Court decisions relating to this area. Heather is a really versatile healthcare lawyer, which was of vital importance when she joined our then quite small team in 2013 and she continues to play her part as trusted advisor to our clients both directly and a really knowledgeable and friendly go-to for our trainees and others joining us who are new to the healthcare team and its specialist work.
James Fawcett

James Fawcett

James is a highly experienced partner leading our large Technical Claims team that spans both our London and Nottingham offices. He specialises in Defendant insurance litigation, with particular expertise in complex personal injury litigation and claims arising from equality and Human Rights legislation. His very large over-arching team includes our local authority team, motor team, commercial insurance specialists, our education sub-team, housing team, and he also manages a sub-team which specialises in pursuing business recovery and debt actions.  James’ breadth of expertise means he is well placed to collaborate across our broader practice both to enhance our offer and to continue to  build the unique reputation his teams have developed to embed transferable skills. He currently handles a varied caseload of complex, high value litigation, acting on behalf of educational establishments, Local Authorities, Public Bodies, as well as commercial and agricultural organisations. He has considerable experience in handling catastrophic injury claims, including cases involving traumatic brain injury, amputation, fatal accidents, disease and stress at work claims. James works closely with a number of key clients, providing tailored training sessions, secondments, and advice on risk management issues. He will always look to immerse himself in the client’s philosophy and adapt his approach accordingly. James has a growing reputation in the education sector.  
Helen Gill

Helen Gill

Helen is a Principal Associate in the Public Law team, specialising in biodiversity net gain (BNG), environment and nature conservation law, large scale planning projects, public law and advice relating to the discharge of statutory powers, functions and duties. Helen also has experience of leading investigations within the public sector. Helen has extensive experience in transactional, litigious and advisory matters, acting for both public and private sector clients, including regulators. Helen was previously the lead lawyer on BNG and Conservation Covenants at Natural England, and is now advising both public and private sector clients on all matters relating to BNG - including landowners, local planning authorities and developers. Helen acts on a wide range of environmental and wider public law matters, including those relating to vires and governance queries, the development of policy and legislative reforms, appeals and enforcement matters, regulatory pathways and advising public bodies on lawful decision making. Helen leads investigations for public sector clients, most recently investigating complex whistleblowing allegations, assisting with workplace investigations within the public sector and leading various Code of Conduct investigations. Having qualified, and practiced, as a projects lawyer, Helen specialises in large projects and brings a significant amount of project management knowledge and organisational skills to her matters.
Roland Gray

Roland Gray

Roland specialises in landlord / tenant matters, and property management and land development projects. He has extensive experience of working with a diverse range of blue- chip companies and organisations that cut across the retail, leisure, industrial and housing sectors. He has particular expertise in carrying out large scale due diligence projects and has acted on a number of key strategic acquisitions and disposals in the public and private sector, including accommodation in PPP projects and public sector mixed-use housing schemes.
David Harris

David Harris

David rejoined Browne Jacobson as a Professional Development Lawyer in the property department responsible for training, precedents, updates, Lexcel and general know-how. He previously worked in education, lecturing and tutoring on the Legal Practice Course, the Graduate Diploma in Law and the LLB at Nottingham Trent University. Before moving into education, David worked as a Solicitor at Browne Jacobson dealing with all aspects of commercial property work before joining Nottingham Trent University.
Mark Hymers

Mark Hymers

Mark joined the firm in 2008 and specialises in retail and commercial real estate including leases of property in high street, shopping centre, and business park locations. Mark also deals with lease management matters including consents for alterations and rebranding for retailers with large estates, and land management matters including the grant of easements for one of the UK’s largest landowners. Mark advises national and international retailers including leading high street brands, as well as heritage conservation organisations and charities, and one of the UK’s leading construction consultancies. Competencies: Mark specialises in commercial real estate, advising on a range of property matters including in relation to leases and 1954 Act renewals (where he has acted for landlords and tenants), acquisitions and disposals of leasehold and freehold land, as well as ongoing lease management matters such as agreements for works and consents to underlet or assign.
Matthew Kemp

Matthew Kemp

Matthew is a Partner who specialises in real estate. He advises funds, lenders, landlords, and corporates on a variety of real estate transactions across all sectors, with a particular focus on investment. Matthew's experience includes acquisitions and disposals, funding work, asset management and occupier leasehold matters, large scale projects and as real estate lead on cross-discipline/jurisdiction transactions. Recent transactions include: \tfunding, refinancing and disposal projects; \tinvestment acquisitions and disposals across all sectors; \tasset management for UK and offshore fund managers and investors; \tadvising corporate occupiers and retailers on leasehold matters; and \tnon-core asset transactions eg marinas, football stadiums.
Herjit Khinda

Herjit Khinda

Herjit has a large portfolio of claims consisting mostly of insurer-backed employers’ and public liability claims. These range from high value claims with some cases exceeding reserves of £750,000. She also deals with high value multi-track motor claims. She has a particular interest in counter fraud having overseen the counter fraud team in Nottingham and Birmingham with a portfolio of claims involving LVIs, staged/contrived accidents, multi-party fraud and bogus passenger claims.  Her counter fraud experience particulary with the Health clients has seen a number of successful repudiations which invariably resulted in recovery of our costs.  Herjit plays a key part in delivering an exceptional quality service to all of our motor clients; ensuring team compliance with SLAs and internal protocols.  She is also responsible for delivering key management information on a monthly basis, which outlines the status of each case, up to date reserves and current defence spend. More recently she has advised and is defending claims where bullying and harrassment form the basis of their allegations; as well as dealing with claims involving cyber crime. 
Susan Mabbott

Susan Mabbott

Susan brings her considerable interpersonal skills to firm wide operational leadership of this department across our five-office network. Her experience at working at every level within the firm, along with a natural flair for spotting strengths, means that she is well placed to put the right people in the right roles.  She is a qualified business coach and mentor (Institute of Leadership and Management). This involves leading on the delivery of firm strategy through key sector and departmental business planning and making sure they fit with central projects, to include IT case management and Human Resource and Learning and Development activities.   Susan is a member of the firm’s Exec as well as the Core Insurance Sector and Local Authority Boards. Locally, Susan leads Nottingham’s Technical Claims and Social Care Team handling a broad range of Defendant personal injury, and RTA related litigation on behalf of Local Authorities, health bodies and other public sector clients, as well as commercial and agricultural organisations. She is an appointed nominated Partner for the NHS Resolution’s Risk Pooling Scheme and thus has responsibility for ensuring high quality service delivery from her team dealing with those claims. Susan is also client relationship partner for a number of commercial insurance and public sector clients. Susan’s work continues as Partner sponsor for the firm’s highly successful apprenticeship scheme, Browne Jacobson being the first law firm to engage a cohort of apprentices within its legal teams.
Carl May-Smith

Carl May-Smith

Carl May-Smith is a partner and barrister specialising in regulatory and criminal law with a particular focus on the health and care sector. He and his team provide a broad variety of advice including on health and care standards (CQC and others), health & safety and fire safety. His clients include care providers (independent and NHS), investors (in health and care sector businesses or otherwise), companies requiring proactive or regulatory litigation advice and public bodies. Carl has considerable experience of advising and representing individuals and corporate bodies, whether they are facing regulatory or criminal investigations or proceedings, have been the victims of crime or are involved in such proceedings less directly. At other times he provides proactive advice and training to businesses and others on regulatory matters to help them avoid such issues arising. For investors, banks and insurers, particularly in the health and care sector, Carl and his team offer specialist due diligence services. He works alongside commercial and corporate colleagues or independently to apply his wealth of experience to help identify existing or potential regulatory risks. In addition to this work, Carl has advised and represented national and local regulators including the Health and Safety Executive, Care Quality Commission, Natural England, local authorites and fire authorities. He regularly appears as an advocate in the Magistrates' and Crown Courts as well as in Tribunals and at inquests.
Shaun McCabe

Shaun McCabe

Shaun heads up the Nottingham team and is one of the best known lawyers in the East Midlands market place. He heads a team of dedicated banking specialists who have a dominant position in the East Midlands. Shaun advises lenders, private equity houses and corporate borrowers on refinances, acquisitions, development finance, investment finance, asset based lending and general lending matters. Shaun has a particular expertise advising on private equity transactions and advising on asset based lending structures. Shaun is recognised as a leading individual in the legal directories. He is an experienced operator well known in the Midlands market and , during the course of this year, has advised a number of high profile deals including: • advising Palatine Private Equity on the secondary buy out of CET UK supported by senior facilities from Clydesdale Bank and mezzanine facilities from Beechbrook Capital (this transaction was named on East Midlands deal of the year by Business Insider) • advising Littlefish on its MBO backed by Lloyds Development Capital and HSBC (named as SME deal of the year in the West Midlands by Business Insider) • advising Wise Living Homes on a £33m development finance facility provided by ICG Longbow
Paul McCannah

Paul McCannah

Paul is a partner in the Corporate team (having been promoted from Senior Associate in May 2019) specialising in M&A, private equity and general company law. He has a focus on driving the team’s technology sector, including advising on the disposal of an industry leading gaming manufacturer and developer Reflex Gaming. He advised sellers and management on the private equity backed tertiary buy out of CARE Fertility Group funded by Silverfleet Capital, as well continuing to act on numerous “add-on” acquisitions for CARE. He also advised the shareholders of Delamin Nitriding Salts  on the sale of its industrial salts business to the US subsidiary Parker Trutec Inc of Japanese parent company Nihon Parkerizing Co.
Stephanie McGarry

Stephanie McGarry

Stephanie advises on policy drafting ranging from health and safety to mental health and wellbeing.  She advises and assists in relation to police, fire authority, health and safety and coronial investigations and if necessary the safeguarding process which often runs alongside such investigations.  She is also familiar with issues affecting large portfolios of commercial buildings and residential premises and has produced bespoke databases for clients to assist them in managing their regulatory responsibilities as landlords, tenants and building owners.  Her breadth of knowledge across the regulatory field makes her an invaluable source of expertise for clients. Stephanie regularly represents public bodies, including fire authorities, and advises in relation to the strength of evidence and liability risks both from a prosecution and defence perspective. She has a particular specialism in dealing with large scale and complex health and safety and corporate manslaughter investigations.  She has advised in respect of numerous fatal and non-fatal accident criminal investigations in connection with a variety of industries. This includes deaths on construction sites, agricultural sites, in educational settings and in NHS and local authority premises. She assists clients with disclosure exercises for the purposes of the Coroner’s inquiry and police / regulatory investigations and regularly appears before coroners and magistrates’ courts. She regularly attends interviews under caution with the Health & Safety Executive and the police.
Richard Medd

Richard Medd

Richard is our Managing Partner and leads the delivery of our strategy. He has 20 years’ experience working with our clients across the private and public sectors as a corporate finance partner, advising on mergers & acquisitions, private equity deals, international transactions, corporate reorganisations and the commercialisation of public services. Before becoming Managing Partner Richard headed up our Business Services department and uses his management experience alongside his expertise in corporate governance derived from his client work to manage all aspects of the firm’s operation.
Katie Michelon

Katie Michelon

Katie  joined Browne Jacobson as a trainee in 2007 and has nearly ten years of experience as an education lawyer. In her early career (2010), she completed a secondment to the in-house legal team at The Girls’ Day School Trust. She now advises maintained schools and academy trusts on a range of education law issues including governance, admissions, safeguarding, school intervention and parental complaints. Katie has been heavily involved in the academy conversion programme following the implementation of the Academies Act 2010. She has advised on the corporate and commercial aspects of hundreds of academy projects including the creation and expansion of multi-academy trusts and the conversion of church schools, special schools and pupil referral units. She was the lead lawyer on the first hospital school conversion in the country. She now focuses largely on group projects, working closely with a number of multi-academy trusts on their expansion, including academy merger and re-brokerage projects. Katie has also developed a particular area of expertise in school intervention and Ofsted advice and leads on this part of the firm’s practice. She provides advice to schools and academies who may be vulnerable to formal intervention measures from their local authority or the Secretary of State, including launching judicial review proceedings. She also supports schools with challenging Ofsted inspections and seeking delay to publication. As part of her work in the area of school intervention, Katie contributed to representations made to Parliament on the Education and Adoption Bill. Katie regularly speaks at seminars and national conferences including, for example, the Optimus Child Protection conference and National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) Annual Conference, as well as delivering bespoke training to governing bodies and senior leadership teams on topics such as exclusions, governance and safeguarding. She has also featured in the education press having written articles for publications such as Schools Week, The Voice (an Institute of Schools Business Leadership publication) and Attendance Matters and has been interviewed for education pieces in The Guardian and LexisPSL. She also regularly contributes to the Association of School and College Leader’s (ASCL) Leader magazine and has written briefing notes for the NAHT and Optimus as well as Browne Jacobson’s own newsletters and website. She has also delivered webinars on topics such as digital safeguarding, parental access to information and re-brokerage. Katie leads a mentoring scheme with Greenwood Academies Trust which offers career and pastoral support to students at local academies, including one-to-one mentoring and work experience.
Helen Morgan

Helen Morgan

Helen is a Senior Associate in the corporate team and has experience advising on all aspects of corporate work. Helen specialises in complex group reorganisations often involving capital reduction demergers, dividends, capital reductions, intra-group business and asset transfers, reorganisations of share capital, share-buybacks and s.110 schemes and leads the team in this area. Helen also has experience providing technical company law advice, advising on the corporate aspects of Family Constitutions and advising registered societies, LLPs, property management companies and companies limited by guarantee.
Amelia Newbold

Amelia Newbold

Amelia is a Senior Associate in our health team with many years’ experience as a solicitor resolving clinical negligence claims, acting on behalf of NHS Resolution and NHS Trusts and has also represented claimants. Amelia leads on the clinical risk management work we do for NHS Resolution, NHS Trusts and our other health clients. She is involved in a number of projects to identify the learning from claims and inquests to support wider patient safety and quality improvement work, including undertaking ‘deep dive’ analysis of inquests and claims we have concluded for individual NHS Trusts to highlight and examine specific trends and identify learning from these experiences to prevent harm and hopefully also reduce litigation.
Jonathan Newbold

Jonathan Newbold

Jonathan specialises in dealing with claims with a financial services or management liability element. He has particular expertise in policy coverage matters. He also regularly assists underwriters with the drafting of policy wording and advises insurers on strategy and risk management across professional indemnity books of business. Jonathan is head of Browne Jacobson’s Financial & Professional Risks Group in Exeter, London and Nottingham, which comprises 12 Partners, 16 Solicitors and 8 Legal Assistants. He is one of Browne Jacobson’s leading partners for insurance coverage disputes. He advises on both primary layer and excess layer insurance matters. His coverage work has arisen primarily out of professional negligence matters but he has also received notable instructions in the context of product liability, property, public liability and employers’ liability covers. He spends the majority of his time providing strategic advice to one of Browne Jacobson’s most significant clients, Hiscox Insurance Co Ltd. As part of his role as the partner with key responsibility for managing that client relationship Jonathan also takes responsibility for the delegated authority claims handling schemes that we successfully run for Hiscox in relation to many hundreds of professional liability and employment practices liability claims.
Helen O\'Dwyer

Helen O\'Dwyer

Helen leads the delegated authority claims handling team in Nottingham.  This handles a high volume (thousands) of claims a year for FTSE 250 insurers specialising in professional negligence, D&O, public liability property damage and employment practices liability insurance.  Helen has particular experience handling claims against non-traditional professions in the SME market ranging from letting agents, wedding photographers to funeral directors.  Helen also has good experience of policy coverage investigations and disputes.
Samantha Paxman

Samantha Paxman

Samantha is a Partner and Barrister with an extensive professional disciplinary, civil and public law practice. Noted as a rising star in the professional disciplinary sector in 2019 and 2020, Samantha has been instructed on a number of complex, high profile and lengthy hearings. Samantha represents clients from initial instruction through to advocacy at the final hearing and provides advice which is technical, thorough and pragmatic. Described by an opposition barrister as both “delightful in manner and rigorously forensic”, Samantha presents cases in a manner appropriate for investigative proceedings with a sensitivity towards witnesses and respondent professionals, particularly those who are vulnerable. Samantha is one of the senior team acting on behalf of the Teaching Regulation Agency. As lead for cases at the hearing stage she provides oversight and supervision of junior colleagues along with strategic advice to the client. In the last year Samantha has provided timely advice to the client in relation to the introduction of virtual hearings. In addition to her professional disciplinary experience, Samantha also acts for public sector and insurer clients in high profile complex inquests, Court of Protection proceedings, civil trials and proceedings before the First Tier Tribunal Health, Education and Social Care Chamber.
Kassra Powles

Kassra Powles

Kassra specialises in development and strategic land transactions, acting for landowners on option and promotion agreements for housing led developments as well as acting for private developers and local authorities on mixed use and commercial developments. His experience of acting for a wide range of clients – landowners, developers, local authorities, promoters – gives Kassra an understanding of all the players in a property development and can guide clients through the competing demands and conflicts that will arise along the way.
Chris Stark

Chris Stark

Chris is a partner and joined the firm in January 2013 having worked in-house at a large acute NHS Trust for four years. He is a solicitor advocate (civil) and regularly appears in both the Court of Protection and the Coroner’s court, conducting his own advocacy. Chris brings a wealth of experience and a varied practice from his time working in-house and has subsequently undertaken long term secondments in both a major independent health sector provider and a mental health Trust. He sits on an acute NHS Trust Clinical Ethics Committee and specialises in in all aspects of mental health law, mental capacity, Court of Protection and coronial law. He is a regular speaker at training events across the country.
Simon Tait

Simon Tait

Simon heads up our health practice nationally, and is responsible for the sector strategy across all of Browne Jacobson’s Offices.  His practice is primarily contentious, advising on regulatory matters, inquests, and clinical governance matters. Simon specialises in advising on high profile clinical investigations, including inquests often attracting national press coverage. He is client partner for a number of our key clients including the Medical Protection Society, Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.
Gabor Taller

Gabor Taller

Gabor has a recognised expertise in social housing development work and complex funding work and has led on the securitisation of more than £1bn of affordable housing over the last 5 years. Additionally, Gabor is currently acting for major national housing association clients assisting in the delivery of thousands of much needed affordable housing dwellings. Clients include (amongst others) Platform, EMH, NCHA, Longhurst, Midland Heart, Minster Property Group and Tuntum. Gabor (and the team as a whole) is sought out by an extensive range of clients because of this social housing expertise; including not only housing associations but also private-sector developers, funders and public bodies.
Emma Taylor

Emma Taylor

Emma is a Partner in our insolvency practice specialising in both corporate and personal, and contentious and non-contentious matters.  As a psychology graduate, Emma’s professional career began in the legal department at Muller Dairy UK.  She returned to College to convert to law before going on to qualify at Eversheds in 2009.  Emma is highly experienced in all forms of insolvency procedure and practice. The nature of insolvency referrals means that Emma has experience across a range of sectors including: retail, IT, education, local government, healthcare, construction, energy and agriculture.  She is accustomed to acting in unusual situations and has a calming and methodical style which can help put clients at ease.  Emma is regularly instructed to advise directors on their duties, on the risks of insolvency and on the appointment of insolvency practitioners through to the sale of assets and/or antecedent recovery actions. Recent instructions include advising a sub-tenant on the effect of a Part 26 Restructuring Plan and obtaining an amendment to that Plan to avoid the immediate termination of those sub-leases; advising directors on the implications of the Loan Charge and on their liabilities as a result of entry into various tax avoidance schemes; acting for a buyer of a going concern media company from administrators; and obtaining a court order to appoint the majority directors’ choice of administrators in hostile circumstances.
Vicky Tomlinson

Vicky Tomlinson

Vicky plays a key role in leading corporate transactions in the independent health and care sector. Vicky has worked with a number of private sector health and care clients on all areas of corporate work including share, business and SPV property acquisitions and disposals, group reorganisations and general company law matters including shareholder agreements, constitutional and corporate governance issues. Vicky’s clients include integrated retirements communities, care home developers and operators, private hospitals, health tech and medical device companies, domiciliary care providers, fertility clinics, children’s services and specialist care providers. Vicky works with companies at all stages of their journey, from start-ups and buy and build platforms to large care groups and internationally listed companies. Out of work, Vicky is busy looking after her toddler, she plays the violin and sings in a band, and has recently represented England winning a gold medal in the Touch Rugby European Championships.