About

The Dublin-based Hawthorn Life operates as a European subsidiary of Columbia Insurance Company, a Berkshire Hathaway organisation. At present it supports and manages an existing book of variable annuities (including both investment and retirement products) for a largely UK customer base. The company’s highly innovative legal team works in close proximity to commercial teams to support the full scope of Hawthorn Life’s activities in both the UK and Ireland and has received praise for generating significant value with its work. The team’s most senior lawyer is head of legal and compliance Shampa Lahiri, who has been with the company since November 2010. Lahiri boasts a highly eventful cross-jurisidicational legal career spent in-house in positions including her current role at Hawthorn Life, her previous seven-year tenure as a general counsel of Hypo Real Estate and in private practice at law firms Arthur Cox and Blake Dawson.