Female Candidates Dominate Appointment Of New Partners List As Firm Continues To Grow

IRWIN Mitchell today announced that seven solicitors, six of them women, and a further female non-lawyer will all be promoted to Partnership status at the leading national firm from next month.

The news was hailed as further demonstration of the meritocratic approach to career progression for the company by Group Chief Executive John Pickering, who said the high proportion of successful female candidates had reinforced Irwin Mitchell’s increasing reputation as a firm which rewarded and promoted talent from employees from all backgrounds.

The appointments take the number of Partners at Irwin Mitchell to 160 after a year which has also seen several high profile arrivals at Partner level to bolster the company’s rapidly growing business division.

Joining Irwin Mitchell’s rapidly growing list of Partners in its Business and Private Client area will be Pensions expert Nigel Bolton, a member of the Association of Pension Lawyers based at the firm’s Leeds office. 

Other new Partners are spread across the firm’s regional offices and include serious brain and spinal injury experts, leading medical lawyers and an asbestos related disease and workplace illness specialist, along with the latest non-lawyer to attain Partnership status at Irwin Mitchell, which became one of the first firms to move to Legal Disciplinary Partnership status last year.

Sheffield-based head and spinal injury expert Louise Jenkins along with fellow serious injury lawyer Hilary Wetherall from the firm’s Birmingham office and specialist asbestos- related disease lawyer Satinder Bains will all become Partners on May 1st.

Three medical law experts complete the 2011 lawyer promotions, with Bristol’s Julie Lewis, Newcastle’s Angela Kirtley and Jennifer Cawthorne from the firm’s Manchester office all rewarded for their work with clients.
 
They are joined by non-lawyer Francesca Bryan, from the firm’s Personal Injury Operations function in Sheffield, who steps up to become the latest in a growing number of Partner-level Associate Director’s.

The news was warmly welcomed by John Pickering, who said he was delighted with all the appointments, emphasising Irwin Mitchell’s commitment to growing its private and commercial offerings throughout the country.

He said: “This has been another busy year for Irwin Mitchell, with some high quality appointments made at a senior level, but these promotions show that we continue to have very capable people carrying out high quality legal work for our clients at all levels and in all areas of our business and they have rightly been recognised for this.

“The past year has also seen us being widely acknowledged for the genuine and practical strides we continue to take in terms of the diversity of our business and the appointment of seven female employees this year as Partners is yet another demonstration that Irwin Mitchell is a firm which rewards ability and has a genuinely inclusive approach.

“The next 12 months could see some of the biggest changes in the legal sector’s history but, as a firm, we feel we’re in a strong position and I’m sure our new Partners will join with our existing partnership in making sure that continues and that we continue to offer a market-leading service to all of our clients.”

Other senior appointments in the past 12 months at Irwin Mitchell included Jon Vivian as part of a 20-strong Real Estate team joining from SJ Berwin, including six further Partners, and Corporate Partner David Glover from Eversheds, with all joining the company’s London office in 2010.

Last month saw the arrival of Tom Flanagan as Irwin Mitchell’s new National Head of Employment, again based in London, while former DLA Regional Managing Partner Paul Firth also joined Irwin Mitchell’s expanding business unit to work from its Sheffield office.

The last six months has also seen Irwin Mitchell collect a number of accolades for its work in promoting equality, with the company named in the Top 5 law firms for diversity by the Black Solicitors Network and placed 93rd of companies in all sectors of the UK by lesbian, gay and bisexual lobby group Stonewall.